Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

DUNDEE EXTENSION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time upon Tuesday, 17th October, at Seven o'clock.

PETITION

Food Prices

Mr. Moate: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a Petition. I do so on behalf of the British Housewives' League, which expresses its opposition to the policy of higher food prices which would result from Britain's entry into the Common Market.
This humble Petition showeth:
That it has been the policy of British Governments since 1846 to keep food prices down and the price support scheme was devised to this end. This costs the taxpayer £6·29 a head a year in the United Kingdom. The Common Agricultural Policy is designed to keep prices up, yet the cost to the taxpayer in the European Economic Community · is £16·45 per head a year.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that the housewives of our country shall not be subjected to the higher prices and higher taxation consequent on accession to the Treaty of Rome.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

USSR (Telephone Interference)

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will now make representations to the Soviet authorities concerning the continued interference with telephone communications between subscribers in the United Kingdom and Mr. Vladimar Slepak and other Jewish scientists in Moscow.

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (Sir John Eden): I would refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the answer I gave on 28th June to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman). The assessment of evidence of interference with the telephone service is a matter for the Post Office, and I suggest that the hon. and learned Gentleman writes to the corporation in the first instance.—[Vol. 839, c. 1422.]

Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the interference with communications between this country and Jewish scientists such as Mr. Slepak, which began at the time when President Nixon went to Moscow, is still continuing and is thoroughly scandalous? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that the main brunt is borne by his own telephone operators whose patience is constantly and sorely tried, particularly when dealing with the scandalous behaviour of the Moscow telephone operators putting calls through to outside Moscow, to places like Sverdlovsk where the Markman trial is being held today?
In the circumstances will the right hon. Gentleman, first, convey to his telephone operators the deep appreciation of all those who have to work on this line and who make calls on it and, second, convey to the Soviet authorities his protest at the disgraceful treatment which is causing such harm to telephone operators in this country?

Sir J. Eden: I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman's points will have


been noted. However, the detailed evidence which he has available should be directed to the Post Office.

Mr. Tilney: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in attempting to speak to Professor Levich, a distinguished scientist who has been offered a fellowship at University College, Oxford, and who has been prevented from so doing and deprived of all his academic qualifications because his family wish to go to Israel, one is constantly told that his number is engaged?

Sir J. Eden: This again is a matter which the Post Office itself would certainly wish to consider; and it is for the Post Office to determine whether representations should be made to the USSR.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this interference extends to the delivery of registered packets which the Soviet postal authorities appear to be illegally refusing to deliver?

Sir J. Eden: I have had indications that this may be the case, but one again needs detailed evidence.

BBC (Education Services)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what communications he has had from the British Broadcasting Corporation about its proposal for a fifth radio network and additional television facilities, separately funded, for educational purposes.

Sir J. Eden: None, Sir.

Mr. Whitehead: In that case, is the Minister aware that these interesting and, to some degree, revolutionary proposals which have been trailed by the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation are a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of broadcasting but that that contribution, like all other similar ones, would be better placed in the context of a full national inquiry into broadcasting?

Sir J. Eden: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's latter point. On his first point, I read the Director-General's speech with a great deal of interest.

Television Reception (Derbyshire)

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will now make a further statement about arrangements to enable the IBA to extend 625-line transmission to Derbyshire by means of booster stations.

Sir J. Eden: The IBA is hoping to start transmissions from a relay station at Glossop in mid-1973 and then within a few months from Ladder Hill, Buxton and Birch Vale. This will bring Independent Television on UHF to an additional 23,000 households.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That is indeed good news, but is my right hon. Friend aware that unfortunately not one of my constituents will be covered by this? Nevertheless the BBC, I understand, is pushing ahead with the erection of its low power transmitter on Stanton Moor, and will my right hon. Friend ensure that if the BBC can get this done in 1973 the IBA will be able to join forces and also broadcast on UHF from the same station?

Sir J. Eden: They will be able to share facilities, so I can reassure my hon. Friend on that point. Both the BBC and the IBA are pressing ahead as far as it is possible to do, given the scale of their resources and the availability of skilled labour forces.

Mr. Whitehead: After these facilities come into operation, can the right hon. Gentleman say what proportion of people in Derbyshire will then be unable to receive 625-line transmissions?

Sir J. Eden: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the original Question and my answer to it, it will leave another 22,000 households unserved.

International Telephone Calls (Delays)

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office to maintain records of delays in international calls.

Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. It is for the Post Office to decide what records it needs to run its business efficiently.

Mr. Huckfield: Is the Minister aware that he keeps telling me that he does not


have any record of delays on international calls? How on earth will he be able to find out what delays occur if he will not give the Post Office a simple directive like this? Does he not realise that the impossibility of using ISD facilities is now so intense that many of us have given up direct dialling altogether?

Sir J. Eden: It is not for me to keep these records or to check on the detailed operation of the service. That is a matter for the Post Office, which attends to it. The hon. Gentleman will be aware—dealing with his general observations—that demand in the United Kingdom for international calls has been rising at a rate in excess of 20 per cent. per annum, and this is likely to increase. The Post Office and the industry are doing their level best to tackle this, but it is straining resources to the limit.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is something strange about calls to Portugal, on which there is a four or five hours' delay, whereas if one calls from Portugal one gets through in 10 minutes?

Sir J. Eden: That may not be altogether to do with equipment in this country. It may have something to do with equipment in Portugal.

Commercial Radio (Consortia Chairmen)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will seek to amend the Sound Broadcasting Act to exclude consortia, whose chairmen are, or have been, national officers of political parties, from eligibility for the franchise of commercial radio stations.

Sir J. Eden: No, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a consortium including the Manchester Evening News and business firms, with Baron Hewlett as its chairman, has applied for the Manchester station? While this applies to leaders of all political parties, does the right hon. Gentleman think it proper that a man who for six years has been chairman of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations should be given such an influential position as this?

Sir J. Eden: I do not follow the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Section 3(1)(e) of the Television Act, which applies to sound broadcasting, imposes a duty on the authority as far as possible to ensure due impartiality in controversial programmes. The hon. Gentleman referred to an application in connection with Manchester. He will know that although the gentleman to whom he referred is to be chairman of the consortium, Alderman Bernard Langton, a former Labour lord mayor, is to be a member of it. I think this is a reasonable balance.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Is there no way of protecting people from the smears which are so frequently cast at them by the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun)?

Sir J. Eden: Only by discouraging the sort of observation which was made by the hon. Member for Salford, East.

Mr. Allaun: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is fair to regard as a smear a remark pointing out that a man holds top office in the Conservative Party.

Mr. Kaufman: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that all these difficulties, whether smears or worries about political influences, could easily be avoided if he were to withdraw the wretched Act which makes these abominable stations possible?

Sir J. Eden: I think that is a rather futile question.

Broadcasting (University of Wales Report)

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he has studied the interim report of the Committee on Broadcasting. established by the Council of the University of Wales, a copy of which is in his possession; and if he will make a statement.

Sir J. Eden: I have studied the report with interest. Its recommendations will be considered when policy for broadcasting in the post-1976 period is formulated.

Mr. Roberts: My right hon. Friend will be aware that this report recommends a Welsh language television channel, but is he aware that this would be


welcome to monoglot English people living in Wales as well as to those who speak Welsh? Does he not think that it would be wise to grant gracefully this channel rather than yield to youthful pressures from unwanted guests such as those who visited him at the Post Office yesterday?

Sir J. Eden: I do not think it necessary to yield to pressures of any kind. This is a matter which needs to be considered carefully in the context of the post-1976 period. I have read the report with a great deal of interest and I note the extent to which it calls for a subsidy. The fact remains that more is spent on broadcasting per head of Welshmen already than is spent per head of Englishmen.

Broadcasting (Complaints Procedure)

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if, as part of his consideration of ways of dealing with complaints, he will have discussions with the chairmen of the British Broadcasting Corporation and of the Independent Broadcasting Association about making the two organisations answerable to the Press Council for complaints made about them.

Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. I do not believe that the Press Council would be an appropriate body for considering broadcasting matters.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: May I press my right hon. Friend to look at the constitution of the Press Council again? Surely he will agree that the BBC and the IBA are essentially members of the Press and that the council, which was set up as a result of a Royal Commission and which can handle complaints procedure in the sort of way that many of us would welcome, could apply at present to the BBC and the IBA, which by their own monitoring of complaints are putting themselves in the position of Satan trying to rebuke sin.

Sir J. Eden: I will consider the latter observation of my hon. Friend, but the Press Council's job is concerned with the treatment of individuals by journalists and such matters as invasion of privacy and misrepresentation. It has no qualifications for passing judgment on bias.

balance, impartiality, taste and so on which are of such importance in broadcasting.

Post Office Finance

Mr. Golding: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will write off past losses in the postal service.

Sir J. Eden: I have nothing at present to add to the reply I gave to a similar question on 28th June.—(Vol. 839. c. 1415–6.]

Mr. Golding: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is the view of the Post Office that if past increases are to be avoided the accumulated losses, expected to be £180 million by April, must be written off? Is he further aware that the Union of Post Office workers supports this point of view because of the worsening morale in the postal services? Therefore, will the Minister give us an early reply to representations from the Post Office?

Sir J. Eden: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the finances of the Post Office, in the light of the CBI price restraint and other matters, are under consideration. The UPW saw me the other day and made representations to me on this point, and I will undertake to make my position clear as soon as I am able to do so.

Mr. Golding: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will state the financial results of posts and telecommunications, respectively, in 1971–72; what rate of return on telecommunication capital was achieved; and whether he will make a statement.

Sir J. Eden: As the hon. Member will have seen from the Post Office's recent report, the telecommunications business made a profit of £58 million and its rate of return on capital was 8·6 per cent., whereas the postal business incurred a £12·6 million loss.

Mr. Golding: Will the Minister tell us what was the increase in productivity in telecommunications last year and, despite that good performance, by how much prices would have had to be increased last year for the telecommunications service to reach the target of 10 per cent.? Further, will he tell us for the current year whether he will be


revising the target or whether he will be driving price increases high enough to make it possible for the service to reach the 10 per cent. target?

Sir J. Eden: I have no price increase proposals before me at the moment. I believe the figures for which the hon. Gentleman has asked are available in the Post Office Report and he will also find them in the speech which was made by the Chairman of the Post Office at the time the report was presented. In considering this report, one has to face the fact that a higher level of pay and prices has added something like £65 million in costs, whereas higher charges to customers have brought in an extra £23 million. This has contributed very much to the adverse situation.
Mr. Speaker, may I say how much one shares in the sense of loss at the untimely death of Lord Delacourt-Smith who made such a great contribution towards the work of the Post Office engineers?

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the Post Office always has the difficulty that its more modern side, in telecommunications equipment, does a large amount of the work, whereas on the other side, which is labour-intensive, there cannot be any change because of the nature of the postal services, and that with rising wages—whether they are too high or not, they are inevitable—it is more difficult to make a profit?

Sir J. Eden: That is absolutely correct. Not only is the postal business labour-intensive and, therefore, very much affected directly by inflation but it has also been experiencing a decline in its business of about 9 per cent. on a working day basis.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENVIRONMENT

Foreign Commercial Vehicles (Standards)

Mr. Redmond: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what checks are made to ensure that commercial vehicles entering Great Britain, particularly from the Republic of Ireland, are in all respects roadworthy and to a stan-

dard which is compatible with the Ministry of Transport test certificates issued in this country.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths): The Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act, 1972, gives enforcement officers the necessary powers to carry out such checks.

Mr. Redmond: Are these checks being carried out? Does my hon. Friend realise that a number of vehicles of commercial types, usually landing at Preston, I believe, having come through Larne from the Republic of Ireland, are arriving in the hands of itinerant tinkers or gipsies but are simply not fit to be on the road, being a menace to the drivers and to the public as a whole, whereas commercial vehicle operators in this country would be jumped on from a great height if their vehicles did not undergo the Ministry of Transport test regularly?

Mr. Griffiths: The Act in question came into force only last week. However, I note what my hon. Friend says and I shall ask my Department's examiners to look into the problem which he mentions.

Long Eaton

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will arrange to make an official visit to Long Eaton.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I have no immediate plans to do so.

Mr. Rost: Has my right hon. Friend noted that, egged on by Labour Members of Parliament, the Long Eaton council has misguidedly decided not to-implement the Housing Finance Act and, as a result, many hundreds of the least well off of my constituents living in rented accommodation, both private and council, will not be getting their rebates? If my right hon. Friend cannot come to Long Eaton, will he at least give me some guidance on how I may protect the least well off of my constituents, since the Labour Party obviously does not care?

Mr. Walker: I suggest that my hon. Friend advises the Long Eaton council to get in touch with some of the many authorities which brought in the national


rebate scheme last April and can explain how successful it has been.

Council Housing Subsidies

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a further statement on the Government's declared intention of reducing by up to £200 million a year the council housing subsidies which would have otherwise been paid by 1975 under the present system.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): The Government never declared an intention to reduce housing subsidies by any specific amount. We have estimated that the effect of the provisions of the Housing Finance Act, 1972, will be to maintain subsidies at about their present level, or, in my latest judgment, somewhat above.

Mr. Allaun: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recall that on two occasions in the Chamber the Government stated precisely what I have set out in the Question? Is it not unjust to reduce such potential subsidies by a single penny when the Government, quite rightly, last year raised the relief to owner-occupiers from £300 million to £340 million a year?

Mr. Amery: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to misrepresent the situation. All I was trying to explain on previous occasions was that the reorganisation of the subsidy system, which will concentrate subsidies on people and areas in need, will leave subsidies maintained at about or somewhat above their present level.

Mr. Crosland: May we clear this matter up? Is it not within the recollection of the House that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the mini-Budget of October, 1970, stated that he expected a saving of £200 million in 1975–76 compared with what would otherwise have been the case? Is it not within the recollection also of all members of Standing Committee E that similar figures were given by the Minister himself more than once in those proceedings? Will the right hon. Gentleman now give his present estimate as compared with those estimates of the likely savings in 1975–76?

Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that what I have been at pains to correct is the suggestion

that the declared intention was to make this saving. [HON. MEMBERS: "It was."] It has never been, and I thought that the right hon. Gentleman had long ago abandoned the idea that the object of the Housing Finance Act was to save money. That has never been its object. The object has been to reconcentrate subsidies where they are needed. As I have said, my estimate is that subsidies will remain at about or somewhat above the present level.

Mr. William Hamilton: Deliberately or otherwise, the right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House. Does he not recall that the White Paper on public spending issued by the Chancellor in October, 1970, stated in terms that the saving would be between £100 million and £200 million a year on housing subsidies as compared with what they would have been if the Labour Government's subsidies had been continued? Will he now say what the current estimate is?

Mr. Amery: We have merely pointed out that the more rational and equitable subsidy system on which we are embarking happens to result in between £100 million and £200 million less than the old inefficient system would have produced, but this is not the motivating force behind the Act. What we are trying to do is to help people and areas in need.

Mr. Crosland: If it was not at least the original motivating force behind the Bill, why on earth was the new housing policy declared not by the Secretary of State or the Minister but by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the context of a money-saving autumn Budget?

Mr. Amery: It was set out at great length in a statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, then Minister of Housing and Local Government, and elaborated in the White Paper "Fair Deal for Housing", as the right hon. Gentleman will recollect.

A38, Derby (Road Marking)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many requests he has received asking for him to reverse his decision to have the double white lines painted out on the A38 at Pastures Hill, Derby.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Three, Sir.

Mr. Whitehead: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the local authority, the Derby Borough Council, applied two years ago for a 40 m.p.h. speed limit on this stretch of road and it put down double white lines—illegally, as it turned out—out of sheer desperation because of the number of accidents and the overtaking which seems endemic on this stretch of road? Will the hon. Gentleman now look sympathetically at a further application from the local authority for a 40 m.p.h. speed limit?

Mr. Griffiths: As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is important not to devalue double white lines by putting them in places where they will not be effective. The local authority has been told that we can agree to a 50 m.p.h. limit, and if it will put up a specific proposal in respect of the short section of bend in that stretch my Department will certainly look at it.

Housing Finance Act

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent representations he has received from local authorities, organisations representing local authorities and other organisations concerned with housing urging him to defer the implementation of the Housing Finance Act.

Mr. Amery: As I would have expected, very few.

Mr. Davis: Is it not a fact that the Association of Municipal Corporations and the London Boroughs Association, among many such bodies, have protested about the early implementation of the Act? Is it not a fact also that the Government have done utterly inadequate research into the financial implications of the Act for council tenants? Are not the bogus figures which have been presented by the Prime Minister, representing an increase of 7½ per cent. for council tenants, totally misleading since if one excludes the 1 million council tenants who have already suffered an increase of 50p, the total increase will be likely to be about 13½ per cent.? Why cannot the Minister come clean about it?

Mr. Amery: As I understand the situation, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave a figure covering all tenants

in all property, both council and private, and I believe his figure to be perfectly correct.

Mr. Davis: I am talking about council tenants.

Mr. Kinsey: Will my right hon. Friend take it that the poorer paid people in my constituency are anxiously looking forward to the implementation of this scheme, which will be of tremendous help to them?

Mr. Amery: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. Any local authority, association or other body which seeks to defer the introduction of the Act is seeking to defer the granting of rebates and allowances to those who need them most and the introduction of the slum clearance and rising cost subsidies to help authorities which have slums and overcrowding.

Mr. Stallard: When does the Minister expect the Act to be published so that we may read it?

Mr. Amery: The Bill has been before the House over a long time. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Act."] The Act comes into implementation in a day or two from now.

Mr. Stallard: When will the Act—not the Bill—be published?

Mr. Amery: I shall look into the hon. Gentleman's question. [HON. MEMBERS: "He does not know."] I shall write to the hon. Member precisely about publication.

Mr. Freeson: This is a fantastic situation. Presumably the Act will be in operation as from today. It has received Royal Assent, or will do so sometime today at the very latest. Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that copies should be available for those who will have to implement it? This is the main point of my query. There are only two or three weeks between enactment and the implementation of all the procedures that local authorities will have to undertake to implement the provisions of the Act—irrespective of rebate schemes which in any event could be operated with or without the Act. It is an impossible situation for hundreds upon hundreds of local authorities. There is complete confusion about what the


Government have in mind as the basis of their rental policy.

Mr. Amery: With his long experience of local government, of which he sometimes reminds us, the hon. Gentleman will know perfectly well that the associations and the local authorities have not only studied the Bill but have studied all the Amendments and know exactly how the Act stands. Implementation, as we discussed when we considered Lords Amendments, is to be a fortnight after 27th July. I have not done the sums to see whether we have reached that date, but the Act will be available in a consolidated form as soon as possible.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many, and which, local authorities in England and Wales have notified him since the Royal Assent was given to the Housing Finance Bill of their intention not to implement the legislation.

Mr. Amery: One, Sir: Camden London Borough Council.

Mr. Finsberg: Will my right hon. Friend consider telling this authority and any other that may decide to break the law that it is against the interests of its own tenants who may well suffer and against the interests of private tenants who may have rent allowances delayed? Will he also tell it that the housing commissioner, if appointed, might under the Act be given powers to sell council houses to tenants?

Mr. Amery: I share my hon. Friend's astonishment that Camden of all places should have taken this line. It seems that both tenant and ratepayer stand to benefit very much from the Act. I take my hon. Friend's point that any local authority which follows the line that Camden has so far taken would be extremely unwise. I cannot believe that Camden will persist with this line and there is plenty of time for it to take a more reasonable attitude.

Mr. Bidwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that by an earlier reply he must have caused considerable confusion in the ranks of the Conservative Party about the effects of the Housing Finance Act since it felt that the intention of the Act was to save subsidies and the taxation of millionaires and people getting up to that mark? Does his reply

mean that there is no real reason for this anxiety in the Labour-controlled authorities because, as with other policies, the Government are now on an entirely new tack?

Mr. Amery: I cannot help feeling that the hon. Gentleman has not perhaps followed our debate and discussions on the Bill as closely as he might have done. If he had, he would have realised that the emphasis from the beginning has been on the need to provide more subsidy finance for people and areas of need, for rebates and allowances for individuals and for a better slum clearance subsidy and rising costs subsidy to deal with overcrowding.

Housing Land (Price)

Sir Gilbert Longden: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue a directive to all planning authorities that, until further notice, no planning permission to develop land for housing shall be granted unless it contains a condition that the applicant shall sell it at a price which allows him to obtain no more than a reasonable profit on the original cost of land to him.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Keith Speed): No, Sir. The main way of tackling the problem of land prices is to increase land supply.

Sir Gilbert Longden: Is my hon. Friend aware that the suggestion in my Question is intended as a spur to the Government to face up to this modern phenomenon of exorbitant property prices which has become a scandal and an offence to all right-thinking people?

Mr. Speed: Yes, I certainly accept that that there was much that needed to be done in the situation of land prices in 1969, for example. The package of measures announced by my right hon. Friend last April and the fact that in the private sector housing starts last year were 26 per cent. up on 1970 and are running at record levels this year must be remembered. We are certainly not complacent and we have certainly not closed the door to further measures if they are needed.

Mr. Crosland: The Government need not a spur but a whip. Are we to take it as a final statement of Government


policy that after all the rise in prices over the last few months they still have no policy for land prices other than the minor tinkering policies announced by the Secretary of State in April?

Mr. Speed: For the right hon. Gentleman to describe the policies and the considerable package announced in April—totalling £80 million—and the other measures as minor policies is a bit much. If the right hon. Gentleman had listened to my answer he would have heard me say that we have not closed the door to any further policy if and when it may be needed. The fact remains that in the private sector starts were running last year at a record level of 26 per cent. over the levels of 1970.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are to debate the matter later today.

Corby

Sir G. de Freitas: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the East Midlands Economic Planning Council has informed him of its view that the expansion of Northampton, Wellingborough, Peterborough and Milton Keynes should be restrained to make sure that Corby has a chance to reach its population target and to become a properly balanced community; and whether he will make a statement on his recent official visit to the East Midlands Economic Planning Board.

Mr. Speed: The East Midlands Economic Planning Council has informed me of its views on the development of Corby compared with the other new and expanding towns in the area. My right hon. Friend met the council on 27th July in Leicester and discussed a variety of topics with it, including the question of industrial diversification and development at Corby.

Sir G. de Freitas: What will the Minister do to see that valuable public investment in Corby is not wasted? A great deal of public money has been spent on encouraging expansion in towns which do not have the facilities that are readily available in Corby.

Mr. Speed: I do not think that public investment is being wasted. My informa-

tion is that on both the housing and the industrial fronts things in Corby are looking extremely bright. Unemployment there is below the national average and I am convinced that the considerable public investment put into this town will be extremely effective for all the developments taking place there, particularly the new industrial developments.

Closing Orders (Contravention)

Mr. George Cunningham: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the effect of inflation on the value of the maximum fine for breaches of a closing order as originally introduced in 1919 and 1923.

Mr. Amery: The maximum penalty prescribed for letting premises in contravention of a closing order is a fine of £20 and £5 a day for a continuing offence after conviction. For a period of, say, three months the latter fine could amount to £455. The value of the £ today compared with 1919 is 29p and with 1923 23p.

Mr. Cunningham: Is the Minister aware that an Amendment to bring these fines into line with the demands of present-day money values was introduced to the Criminal Justice Bill in the House of Lords by Lord Stow Hill but was rejected purely on the ground that that Bill was a Home Office Bill and not a Department of the Environment Bill? Particularly bearing in mind that the Government accepted an Amendment to increase fines for harassment in that Bill, is the right hon. Gentleman able to explain why, on a purely procedural ground, that sensible Amendment was refused?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. As I understand it, the Amendment was not rejected but was withdrawn by Lord Stow Hill in view of an undertaking given by my noble Friend Lord Colville that the Government would consider the point made in the Amendment.

Housing (Bromley)

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many planning permissions for the building of private dwellings were granted by the London Borough of Bromley in each of


the years 1969, 1970 and 1971; and how many of these have resulted in the completion of such dwellings.

Mr. Amery: This information is not available.

Mr. Hunt: Why is it not available? Similar information for the city of Westminster was given in a Written Answer some time ago. I find this disturbing and not at all understandable.

Mr. Amery: The statistics available to us do not distinguish between planning permissions for public and private sector development and those for new buildings, extensions and alterations. Moreover, completions cannot be related to the number of planning permissions without detailed examination.

Mr. Robert C. Brown: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that private houses started in January, 1971, were sold for £9,000 and that houses of the same design being built by the same builder in Bromley are now being sold at £15,000?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question relates to planning permissions in Bromley.

Mr. Freeson: Is not the Minister aware that anyone may go to a local authority and get information from the register of planning applications which is available for public inspection? It should be possible for the Department to obtain that information from a local authority to show the number of private dwelling applications in any year and the number of houses completed.
How many public sector houses in Bromley were approved and started this year? When may we expect Bromley to co-operate with the London Housing Office set up by the London Boroughs Association in pursuit of the Government's policy to make land available in outer London to deal with the problems of the inner London boroughs?

Mr. Amery: That last question is a separate matter and I should like notice of it. It is true that Bromley may be able to supply the particulars and my hon. Friend may approach the council if he wishes, but I would not myself ask the council to undertake what would be a sizeable task.
As for the more general issue, I draw attention to a Written Answer by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on the

work of the London Action Group whose two interim reports are now available in the Library.

Rent Assessment Panels (Members' Fees)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what fee for each sitting is paid to members of rent assessment panels in London, apart from presidents and vice-presidents.

Mr. Amery: The daily fee payable thoughout the country is £27 for chairmen, £25 for professional members and £15 for lay members. Half-day fees are paid as appropriate.

Mr. Lipton: How many of these people are there? Who appoints them and for how long are they appointed? Is any change in their status or duties contemplated for the near future?

Mr. Amery: There are 120 members of the London Rent Assessment Panel and 71 of them are qualified to sit as chairmen. Rent assessment committees are appointed from the panel and each committee normally has a lawyer, a valuer and what is called a lay member—that is, someone with general knowledge. Eleven rent tribunals in London are appointed by the president of the panel from this membership. I will supply the hon. Gentleman with details of their lengths of service and so on if he desires.

Railway Finances

Mr. David Stoddart: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment to what extent he took into account, before agreeing to provide British Railways with £50 million to £60 million and to their proposals about their field organisation, the statement made by the Board's Chairman that Great Britain was in danger of losing its present railway system and the need to prevent further contraction in the railway network; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: My right hon. Friend could not on 27th July take account of something which the Chairman of the Railways Board did not say until 1st August. But the financial and organisational measures referred to in his statement of 27th July should be helpful in reducing the dangers mentioned by the Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Stoddart: Am I to understand that the Minister is so out of touch with the thinking of the Railways Board that he was not aware of the situation set out by the Chairman on 1st August? Will he say, now that he has heard that statement, what action he intends taking to see that the Chairman's prediction that the present railway system will not exist in 10 years' time does not materialise?

Mr. Griffiths: My right hon. Friend is well aware of the thinking of the Chairman of the Railways Board—indeed, he has frequent and useful talks with him. The hon. Gentleman must not mislead the House about what the Chairman said. He did not suggest that the railway system would not exist within 10 years and I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman imagines he said that. He said that it was necessary to rethink the rôle of the railways and that is precisely what my right hon. Friend is now engaged in doing with the Railways Board.

Mr. Mulley: While we welcome the recent decision to provide funds for the railways to help with their cash flow, as well as the other measures which the hon. Gentleman has announced, may I ask whether he and his colleagues realise that what is wanted is a clear statement by the Government that since, for a number of reasons, the expectations of the 1968 Act have not come about, it is a matter of policy that the railways must be given the finances to remain a viable system? Otherwise, with all the opposition to and difficulties of extending roads, if we do not get as much traffic off the roads as we can by using the railways, we will allow decisions now which we will regret in 10 or 15 years' time.

Mr. Griffiths: My right hon. Friend is well aware of the points which the right hon. Gentleman very fairly puts. He is currently engaged with the Railways Board in seeking to identify those services which can be run commercially and, in the light of studies, to consider what action needs to be taken about those services which are not strictly commercial.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that the future of the railways depends a great deal on the capital investment programme made available to them? Can he say whether this pro-

gramme has been increasing or decreasing over the last five years and what he anticipates it will be in future?

Mr. Griffiths: Not without notice.

Centre Point

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what reply he has sent to the further letter dated 2nd August addressed to him by Mr. Harry Hyams on the subject of Centre Point.

Mr. Peter Walker: None, Sir.

Mr. Hunt: While I understand my right hon. Friend's reluctance to pursue this public correspondence, may I congratulate him on so successfully flushing this elusive millionaire into the open, if only to defend the indefensible? Although Mr. Harry Hyams now appears to be getting the ministerial message, will my right hon. Friend say when he expects to be able to place before the House the details of his proposed legislation to deal with the scandal of the empty office blocks?

Mr. Walker: I said in my original statement that unless the majority of the office blocks concerned were occupied within a few months, we would introduce legislation. That is still the position.

Mr. Lipton: When will the right hon. Gentleman do something? So far he has written two or three letters and said that he will do something in a few months' time. We want to know what he will do now.

Mr. Walker: This is a problem that has been going on for some years, including under the previous Government. When I made my statement I made it perfectly clear that unless this ended within a few months I would introduce legislation. I have only ever written one letter which was in reply to a particular request from this correspondent and as far as I am concerned the position remains quite firmly that I have given notice that unless it is ended within a few months I will introduce legislation. I was grateful to the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) for saying the other day that he would assist such legislation.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Will my right hon. Friend consider writing to one of the shareholders in the company owning


Centre Point—namely, one of the organs of the Co-operative Society—to ask it to exercise its influence?

Mr. Walker: No, Sir. This legislation does not concern any specific project or building; it concerns the principle involved. I am not interested in any specific shareholder or company. I am just interested in trying to tackle this problem.

Mr. Freeson: May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we would not object to any such correspondence as is mentioned in the Question? If the right hon. Gentleman feels it necessary to present legislation to the House in the autumn, may I ask him not only to cover the question of office blocks being held empty because of questions of capital appreciation but also to pay close attention to the need for applying such legislation to residential property being held empty for similar purposes on an increasing scale? I have been to see some of them recently, within the last two days, and it is appalling.

Mr. Walker: Local authorities already possess considerable powers in respect of residential property by way of compulsory purchase order when they feel that residential properties are unnecessarily remaining empty. The legislation I have in mind is specifically for office blocks. The problem of empty residential property is something we will continue to examine.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Selective Schools (Glasgow)

Mr. Edward Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a further statement on the position of the selective schools in Glasgow, with particular reference to the intake of primary pupils for the forthcoming session.

The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger): My right hon. Friend is still considering Glasgow Education Authority's proposals for reorganisation of these schools. He has informed the authority today that, without prejudice to the long-term future of the High School of Glasgow, he is prepared to agree to there being no intake of new pupils to the

primary department of the school in session 1972–73.

Mr. Taylor: Is not my hon. Friend aware of a letter which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the authority on 3rd May in which he said that he would enable Glasgow to continue with the status quo until such time as the plans of the authority to reorganise secondary and primary departments were approved? Why has there been a change of plan?

Mr. Younger: There is a different situation with the secondary and primary schools and my right hon. Friend has advised that the present proposal of the authority as regards the primary intake does not require his approval. It is not open to him to prevent it.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICE

Civil Servants

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Minister for the Civil Service what progress has been made in the two years June, 1970, to June, 1972, in reducing the total number of non-industrial civil servants.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department (Mr. Kenneth Baker): The Civil Service has been reduced by nearly 13,000 between 1st July, 1970, and 1st July, 1972. In this period there has been an increase of about 1,000 non-industrial staff and a reduction of about 14,000 industrial staff.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that that fulfils the Government's election pledge to reduce the number of civil servants? Has he taken into account the fact that the introduction of value added tax, apart from putting up the cost of living very substantially, will add 6,000 or 7,000 civil servants to the list he has given?

Mr. Baker: I am satisfied that our record in this respect is infinitely better than the record of the Labour Government. In their first two years of office, 1964–66, they increased the size of the Civil Service by 2 per cent. We have reduced it by about 2 per cent. However, I have made it clear to the House on other occasions that increases are in


the pipeline, not only because of value added tax but also because of certain social security measures which we have introduced, such as family income supplement and the constant attendance allowance. Part of the increase has been in the Home Office establishment where we have increased the number of prison officers by 1,700 since we have been on iffice.

Pension Scheme

Mr. Jessel: asked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he has yet laid before Parliament a copy of the new Civil Service pension scheme.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Yes, Sir, on 15th June. As a result, we have now been able to add to the annual reviews of existing pensions under the Pensions (Increase) Act substantial improvements in the pension scheme itself, including coverage of unestablished staff, preservation of pension rights, the basing of pensions and other benefits on the final year's salary, and half-rate widows' pensions.

Mr. Jessel: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are many retired civil servants living in my constituency, and will he continue to watch their interests carefully in relation to the rising cost of living?

Mr. Baker: Yes. The improvements made in the Civil Service pension scheme which have been approved by the two sides of the National Whitley Council make it one of the best schemes in the country and, as a country, we have every right to be proud of it.

Parliamentary Questions (Cost)

Mr. Jessel: asked the Minister for the Civil Service if he is now able to announce the results of the analysis of the cost of answering parliamentary Questions.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: The costs incurred in Government Departments in preparing answers for 1,385 Questions tabled for Oral Answer and 1,515 Questions tabled for Written Answer during the period 10th April to 5th May, 1972, have now been analysed. The average cost for those for Oral Answer has been calculated as £16 and for those for Written Answer as £10.

Mr. Jessel: What is the largest number of Questions put by any hon. Member in

the present Parliament, and what is the cost to the taxpayer?

Mr. Baker: The House will probably know who has asked the most Questions—the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). He is the last of the big askers. I regret that the hon. Gentleman is not present. Normally he does not miss Question Time.

Mr. Kaufman: He is writing them.

Mr. Baker: The cost of the hon. Gentleman's Questions in the first half of this Session was £13,296 and probably for a full Session it is between £25,000 and £35,000. That is roughly equivalent to the employment of about 12 clerical officers in my Department.

Dr. Marshall: Why is the cost of answering Questions tabled for written answer so much less than the cost of answering those for Oral Answer?

Mr. Baker: Because officials in each Department have to prepare a much fuller brief on Questions for Oral Answer. This practice has continued for some years. This is the real cost. For Questions which are not answered orally less of a brief has to be prepared.

Mr. Crouch: Will my hon. Friend note that some of us are having difficulty in knowing what Questions were asked and what answers were given on 31st July this year due to the fact that HANSARD for that day has not yet been published?

Mr. Baker: There was a short industrial dispute in the Stationery Office which led to the failure to produce HANSARD; but the staff are catching up on the publication of HANSARD. In replying to my hon. Friend's Question rather obliquely, may I point out that the full cost of Question Time over a Session is between £350,000 and £400,000. That is a very small price to pay for one of the basic ingredients of the British parliamentary system.

Mr. Sheldon: While agreeing with the hon. Gentleman's last comment, may I ask him whether he accepts that it is no part of anybody's duty to criticise any hon. Member for tabling Questions which he believes to be necessary in the interests of his constituents and that these matters


can be judged only by the Member concerned? The information about cost which the hon. Gentleman has given is very interesting to us, but does he not agree that Questions are a very valuable means of obtaining the kind of information which it has become increasingly difficult to obtain? Despite the Government's protestations about open government, we have had very poor answers this Session. This point should be put on record.

Mr. Baker: That is a very unfair point to make. I agree with the first part of what the hon. Gentleman said. Question Time is one of the greatest safeguards of the liberties we enjoy in this country. The number of Questions tabled has increased enormously since the last survey in 1965. In the sample periods the number of oral Questions has increased by 57 per cent. and the number of Written Questions by 126 per cent. I pay tribute to the Officers of the House in the Table Office who handle all our Questions.

Civil Servants (Code of Conduct)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement on the progress being made on the re-examination of the code of conduct relating to civil servants and their receipt of gifts from firms or persons in contractual relations with Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: I have nothing at present to add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the hon. Member on 20th July, and to my reply to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) on 19th July.—[Vol. 841, c. 162 and 614–5.]

Mr. Hamilton: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a degree of urgency about this matter? He has just referred to the cost of the Questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). I think he said that the total cost was about £38,000. One of those Questions was tabled to the Secretary of State for Scotland and asked whether Mr. Pottinger had obtained permission to receive the gift of £11,000 or so from the Poulson firm and the answer was a very short "No". In view of that, is it not monstrous that this civil servant should

now be retired on full pay when it was quite clear that he was infringing the existing code of conduct and that if he had been dismissed it would have saved £10,000 of the total cost of £38,000 of the Question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North? Since more unnamed civil servants have been mentioned in the Poulson affair, will the hon. Gentleman treat this matter with a far greater degree of urgency?

Mr. Baker: As the hon. Gentleman will know, police inquiries are taking place into the Poulson affair. It would be unfair—and the Government take this view—for the Civil Service to take disciplinary action against any of the people mentioned until those inquiries are completed because it might be held that such disciplinary action would prejudice the people involved. I have already instituted inquiries about the other unnamed civil servants who have recently been mentioned in the case, but I am not in a position to say any more at this time.

Mr. Whitehead: Whatever the outcome of the Poulson case, is it not abundantly clear that the widespread public concern justifies the establishment of a full and comprehensive register of the interests of civil servants and people in local government?

Mr. Baker: That raises a much wider question. I am not at all satisfied that a register of the interests of civil servants would be manageable or appropriate.

Mr. George Cunningham: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Civil Service should not take disciplinary action in respect of a clear breach of discipline because perhaps criminal proceedings will be instituted in respect of more serious offences?

Mr. Baker: What I am saying is that if the Civil Service were to set up a disciplinary committee to examine the case and action followed, it might prejudice particular people concerned in the case, and it is the custom in cases of this sort for the police inquiries to be completed first.

Disabled Persons

Mr. Sydney Chapman: asked the Minister for the Civil Service what progress has been made in his consideration


of ways of increasing the proportion of registered disabled persons employed by the Civil Service.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Departments have been asked to seek information about the availability of registered disabled persons from the local employment offices and, wherever they can, make it clear in advertisements for staff that registered disabled persons will be considered.

Mr. Chapman: While I am grateful for that reply, may I ask my hon. Friend how many registered disabled people are employed in the Civil Service Department? If it is true that the number has increased, would he say that it would be a good thing to have a target of at least 3 per cent.? Surely it is important that the Civil Service Department should set an example to commercial and industrial organisations in this very important matter.

Mr. Baker: Yes, indeed, there is a target of 3 per cent. both in the public and in the private sector to move towards. I have taken specific action in the last fortnight to improve the numbers of registered disabled persons in the Civil Service. We shall be publishing a booklet upon job opportunities for disabled people in the Civil Service and we shall be issuing instructions to relax the qualifications in respect of disabled people for the appointment of clerical assistants.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Stallard: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I refer to Question No. 31. I feel aggrieved that you failed to call me to put a supplementary question when both the Question and the disgraceful reply given by the Minister affect thousands of people living in my constituency in the London Borough of Camden. It is a fact that the Housing Fnance Act—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot raise a point of order on the fact that I did not call him to ask a supplementary question. I am sorry that I did not call him. I had called him earlier. The hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell) rose several times and I

wanted to call him. Then we had to get on. No point of order arises.

Mr. Stallard: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. That Question specifically applied to my constituency. I was on my feet, and I think I was entitled to be called, especially when the Minister made the most disgraceful attack on that London Borough—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have said that I am sorry that I did not call the hon. Member, but he cannot raise a point of order about it now. The calling of Members is a matter within the discretion of the Chair. Nobody has an absolute right to be called to ask a supplementary question.

Mr. Whitehead: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is a fact that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras North (Mr. Stallard) is an alderman of Camden, and, that being so, there was a direct reflection on him and on other members of the council in the Question asked by the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg)—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot go on discussing this matter. Nobody has a right to be called to ask a supplementary question. Whatever may have been said, there is no right to be called. It is a matter for the Chair. I am sorry I did not call the hon. Member, and I have said so.

BANK LENDING POLICY

Mr. Healey: (by Private Notice)asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the letter sent yesterday by the Bank of England to the joint stock banks regarding their lending policy.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): The Governor of the Bank of England has written to the banks drawing their attention to the need to meet the expanding demand for credit by industry and asking that they should as necessary make credit less readily available to property companies and for financial transactions.

Mr. Healey: The House will note that the Government are celebrating the collapse of another piece of Tory dogma with a familiar somersault, but is this not


bolting the stable door after the horse has gone over the horizon? Is it not the case that over the last 10 months advances to property companies and other speculators have risen by over 70 per cent. whereas advances to manufacturing industry for investment have risen by only 2 per cent. so that it is impossible for the vast majority of young families to get a mortgage for the purchase of a house? In view of the fact that the Government are doing far too little far too late, will they now tell the House when they propose to introduce quantitative controls over bank lending? Secondly, will they, as repeatedly requested by the Opposition, repeal that Clause in the Finance Bill which allows tax-free interest to loans for speculative purposes?

Mr. Jenkin: I, too, have read The Guardian's leading article this morning and I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman could not do better than that. The change which has taken place is most emphatically not a change in the Government's new approach to lending which was introduced last year. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, but the Bank of England consultative document entitled "Competition and Credit Control" specifically provided for the issue of guidance of this sort, and this is exactly what the Bank has done.
As for the question of property speculation and so forth, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that he regarded some of the activities in this field as distasteful, which was the word he used, and if the new policy has some effect in curbing the activities of property speculators I shall be surprised if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite do not cheer as loudly as some of my hon. Friends.
As for the question of tax relief, on that I think the right hon. Gentleman was on a very bad point because the law on borrowing for investment in property today is exactly as it was when the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, the argument was deployed by the Minister of State in debates on the Finance Bill that the reallowance of interest has removed the discrimination which probably acted in favour of borrowing by property speculators.

Mr. Healey: Is it not the case, first of all, that advances to companies other than property companies for speculative purposes have risen by 78 per cent. over the last 10 months and that advances to such companies would be restricted if the Government would repeal that Clause of the Finance Bill to which I referred? In view of the hon. Gentleman's astonishing complacency about the situation, and his belief that there is no change in Government policy so far carried out, will he now answer the question I asked him—when will the Government introduce some quantitative control over bank lending?

Mr. Jenkin: The reallowance of interest was very fully debated during the passage of the Finance Bill and I have nothing new to add to what we said then and to the arguments which the House accepted. On the right hon. Gentleman's point arguing that we should return to some sort of physical controls and his support for a loans ceiling, I would say that the letter issued yesterday is in no sense a move back to the policy which we departed from in the new arrangements introduced last year. This is a letter of guidance from the authorities reinforcing action which the banks themselves have already taken to slow down the growth of their lending. One of the main objects of the reforms introduced last year was to institute greater competition in banking, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that any return to physical controls would be completely opposite to that policy.

Sir D. Renton: Is my hon. Friend aware that interest rates charged to farmers and others carrying out small and medium-sized productive enterprises are now rather more than prohibitively high, and would he apply his mind to this during the coming recess?

Mr. Jenkin: There is certainly no doubt that interest rates could be advantageously affected if we were to get a slowing down in the rate of wage cost inflation, which is one of the major elements which has required interest rates to be raised over the last few months.

Mr. English: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few weeks ago answered my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) by


saying that the money supply was increasing at the rate of 23 per cent.? Hon. Members opposite seem to be slightly surprised that there is inflation in such a situation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he was proposing marginally to reduce the rate of interest. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how that relates to the present situation?

Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Member's memory is quie right. My right hon. Friend, in the debate on 29th June, made it clear. He was referring to recently published figures and said:
The most recent published figures for money supply and credit showed that they had been growing faster than appropriate to support the growing economic activity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th June, 1972: Vol. 839, c. 1709.]
Since then, under the new arrangements, interest rates have risen, and this will undoubtedly affect the rate of growth of money supply. Rapid growth in bank lending has been a factor in the recent growth of the money supply, and a substantial part of it has gone to property companies and financial transactions. Here the new guidance should certainly help.

Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: There are two questions I should like to ask my hon. Friend arising out of the questions posed by the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). First of all, is this a directive to the clearing banks or to the banking system as a whole? My understanding is that it would be the latter, but the right hon. Member for Leeds, East referred specifically to clearing banks. Secondly, could my hon. Friend say what evidence there is, or whether there is, in fact, any evidence, that lending to industry for productive purposes has been curtailed in any way because of rising borrowings?

Mr. Jenkin: On the first question asked by my hon. Friend, the guidance was to the banking system. There are, of course, many other lenders—insurance companies, pension funds and so on—and I have no doubt that these other lending institutions will take note of the guidance issued yesterday by the Bank. On the

second question asked by my hon. Friend, no, there has been no evidence yet of any restriction whatever on lending to industry for investment purposes. Indeed, as I said in an earlier answer, the banks themselves have already been moving in the direction implied by the guidance given by the Bank. We want to make absolutely certain that as the demands for lending from the banking system grow there is no risk whatever of there being any restriction on credit availability to industry.

Mr. Frank Allaun: I am not criticising the restriction of credit for speculative office property companies, but will the Minister give an assurance that there will be no restriction in either the building or the buying of houses and flats? Secondly, since it is expected that the building societies will today raise their mortgage interest rates, will the hon. Gentleman consider extending the option mortgage scheme by raising the margin to help those who will suffer? Does he agree that it would be unfair to restrict building society loans because it would hurt those on lower income levels?

Mr. Jenkin: The second question is not only hypothetical but goes way beyond the scope of the Question asked by the right hon. Gentleman. It is not the Government's intention that there should be any restriction whatever on the development of the housing market to meet the rapidly expanding need. I think the whole House has welcomed the major rise—between 40 and 50 per cent.—in the number of new mortgages granted in the last few months compared with the number granted during the last period of the Labour Government's Administration.

Mr. Rees-Davies: From what my hon. Friend has said, I take it that there is no policy change by the Government on home loans, that neither the banks nor the other institutions will be in any way affected by what has been said this morning, and that the policy which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction has adumbrated will be followed both in the letter and in the spirit?

Mr. Jenkin: I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Secretary of State for the Home Department, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Robert Carr): The business for the first week after the Summer Adjournment will be:
TUESDAY, 17TH OCTOBER—Debate on a Motion for the adjournment of the House on a subject of the Opposition's choice.
Consideration of Opposed Private Business which has been named by the Chairman of Ways and Means.
WEDNESDAY, 18TH OcToBER—Remaining stages of the Museums and Galleries Admission Charges Bill [Lords].
Amendments to Bills which may be received from another place.
THURSDAY, 19TH OCTOBER—Debate on a Motion inviting the House to approve an experiment in broadcasting the proceedings of the House.
FRIDAY, 20TH OCTOBER—Motions on Orders and Prayers, to be announced.
Mr. Speaker, the House will wish to know that preparations are proceeding on the basis of the new Session being opened on Tuesday, 31st October, 1972.

Mr. Orme: Is the Leader of the House able to say anything about the developments on the dock strike and the continuing negotiations of the Jones-Aldington Committee, about which there is a great deal of Press speculation?

Mr. Carr: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked this question because I was in personal contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment shortly before coming into the House. He asked me to tell the House, if this question was asked, as he expected it would be, that he feels the negotiations are at a delicate stage. As the House will know, the Jones-Aldington Committee was adjourned at ten o'clock last night and reconvened this morning, and my right hon. Friend wishes to be available. He feels that there is nothing he can usefully say at the moment, and he asks me to explain that to the House and to say he is sorry, but he feels that this is the right judgment to make.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a great deal of speculation about a possible statement on investment grants for shipping? Is it likely that a statement will be made soon on this subject, as the delay is causing a hold-up of orders?

Mr. Carr: As I said yesterday in winding up one of the debates, my right hon. Friend is actively involved in this under the Industry Bill when it becomes an Act, and he is answering a question about it today.

Mr. Faulds: Sir, I had hoped that we should be celebrating the happy obsequies of the Museums and Galleries Admission Charges Bill. Since that is not to be so, will the right hon. Gentleman, as a suitable epitaph on the Government's dismal record, arrange to have as a permanent memorial turnstiles designed by Henry Moore?

Mr. Carr: We shall have to make sure that the turnstiles are designed in such a way that we shall be able to get in easily. The hon. Gentleman should look at the total amount of extra support which will be available for the arts, both nationally and regionally. The Government have nothing to be ashamed of.

Mr. McMaster: In view of the alarming events of the last few days in Northern Ireland, the shocking increase in terrorist activity, with the death and injury which has resulted and the political talks which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is having in Northern Ireland, is it possible for a statement to be made before the House rises? If not, what provision will be made for the House to be recalled should events in Northern Ireland further deteriorate before the House resumes in October?

Mr. Carr: There will be no statement today. As to the possibility of recalling the House, I made clear yesterday that, as is usual when the House adjourns for the recess, there are provisions for recall should the need arise, and the question of Northern Ireland will be borne in mind. I am a little surprised, after the actions of the last week or so, that my hon. Friend should regard the situation in Northern Ireland as one which is deteriorating. I do not believe that that is the right picture, and I should have thought that my hon. Friend would have


given greater hope and support to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Greville Janner: As the Government have said that nearly 80 per cent. of all applications for compensation for unfair dismissal which have reached the industrial tribunals have failed, and that not one applicant has reached the maximum figure, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be a debate at an early stage upon the shockingly bad way in which this part of the Industrial Relations Act is working in practice?

Mr. Carr: I cannot give an assurance about that at the moment. It is a matter about which I have had no warning. I will, of course, report the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments to my right hon. Friend. I should have thought that we might all have rejoiced in the fact that in a few months the provisions of the Act have given between 2,000 and 3,000 people an opportunity to redress their grievances, an opportunity which they did not have before. Opportunity can always be improved; there was none before but there is now.

Mr. Shore: In view of the anxieties about the docks, Northern Ireland and other matters, I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has repeated that the usual arrangements for recalling the House, should it be necessary, will be put into effect.
I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman two points on the business which he has announced for October. First, he will understand that we on this side of the House find no cause to welcome the news that the Museums and Galleries Admission Charges Bill is to reappear on the Floor of the House. Secondly, he has apparently not been able to persuade his colleagues to come forward with a statement on the Government's position on the consultations that have taken place with a view to a European summit meeting. On the assumption that the summit meeting is still to take place in October, will he make certain that we have either a full statement or a full debate before the meeting takes place?

Mr. Carr: I will take note of what the right hon. Gentleman said and will discuss it personally with my right hon.

and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: On the question of the House discussing the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings when we return after the Recess, in view of the need to arrange these matters in advance will he make representations to the authorities so that when the new Session begins we might begin by televising proceedings in another place to celebrate the notable completion of the Government programme and the fact that we are going into Europe?

Mr. Carr: That is an interesting suggestion, but I suspect that it would cause a great deal of controversy. I think we ought first to debate the matter on Thursday, 19th October.

Mr. William Hamilton: Could the right hon. Gentleman say what form the debate on broadcasting our proceedings will take? Will it be on a Government Motion or in some other form? Will he undertake to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to make a statement in the first week of our return about British citizens in Uganda since obviously in the intervening period various moves will have taken place on this question?

Mr. Carr: On the first question raised by the hon. Gentleman, I have no doubt that we may wish to have discussions about the matter, but my intention at present is that the Government should table a Motion inviting the House to approve an experiment in broadcasting, but I expect that there will be an entirely free vote on the matter. Presumably I shall be intervening in the debate to explain exactly what is and what is not possible and the form the experiment might take, but I shall in no way seek to impose a Government view on the House. There will undoubtedly and properly be a free vote of the House.
In regard to the Uganda Asians, my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary answered a Question on this subject a day or two ago. He is undertaking intense diplomatic activity to try to ward off the threatened inhumane treatment of these many thousands of Asians in Uganda, the majority of whom are perhaps United Kingdom passport holders but some are not. My right hon.


Friend is initiating diplomatic activity on that front, and as a first step the British High Commissioner is seeing President Amin today. In addition, the Government are setting up a standing group of Ministers and officials to watch this matter from day to day to make sure that all action is taken to try to avert the terrible threat that is overhanging these people and to make what contingency plans might be necessary if, alas, President Amin does not yield to reason and our appeal.

Mr. Jennings: Assuming that we enter the Common Market on 1st January next, will it be possible for us to have a debate early in the new Session on the report which has just been issued by the Procedure Committee about the machinery for examining the Common Market legislation in the House, and also in regard to the duties of Members elected to the European Parliament from this House, the process of their selection and whom they will be?

Mr. Carr: What is needed, and what the Government repeatedly have said they would like to see, is a committee to inquire into and report on the parliamentary procedures which we should adopt. I am aware that the Procedure Committee has put forward some preliminary ideas which are useful, but before the House debates the matter—and I will consider it carefully—it might be advisable to have a fuller and more detailed report before us on which we can express our views.

Mr. James Johnson: Last Thursday in business questions the right hon. Gentleman kindly gave me a pledge that he would see the Minister of State for Defence to discuss the Icelandic fishing dispute, particularly on need for contingency plans to be undertaken in the sad event of anything happening after 1st September. Has he seen his right hon. Friend and what action has he taken?

Mr. Carr: I conveyed the hon. Gentleman's concern and made it clear that he was speaking for many other people with a similar concern. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend is not ready to make a statement before the House rises, but I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House

that contingency planning is actively taking place.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on. I must think of the interests of the private Members who have subjects for discussion today. I intend to exercise my discretion and to vary the order of business slightly. I propose to take the two points of order and the Ruling on Privilege before I take the statement on Maplin.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (SELECT COMMITTEE'S REPORT)

Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for the short notice I have given of this point of order, but yesterday the Select Committee on Procedure published its Third Special Report on the Procedural Consequences of Entry into the European Communities.
My point of order is that this Select Committee, which apparently took no evidence, did not publish with its report its proceedings. This surely is a considerable breach of the custom of the House. In eight years I cannot remember a situation in which a Select Committee has not published its proceedings and thus revealed whether its report was unanimous, whether any amendments to it were tabled by any Member of the committee and, if so, what they were and whether there was any division of opinion on them.
I say that advisedly in this case because, however expert the Committee might be about procedures on this subject, it will be agreed that it is a rather strange Committee. The Chairman is the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Mahon (Sir Robin Turton), who does not share the views of the majority of the Conservative Party on the subject of the Common Market, and the members on the Opposition side of the House are my hon. Friends the Members for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand) and for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), who certainly, in my view, do not share the views of the majority of the Labour Party on that subject.
In these circumstances the Committee's proceedings would have been of great interest. I object to the Committee concealing any division of opinion on this matter from the Press and Members of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for having given me notice of this point; I have had time to consider it.
Standing Order No. 80 provides that
…the minutes of proceedings of a Select Committee shall be laid on the Table of the House.
On a proposal of the Select Committee on the Standing Orders (Revision), the House agreed on 8th March, 1971, to this Standing Order, which altered the former provision that the minutes of proceedings of a Select Committee should be laid on the Table with the report of the committee.
I understand that the practice of Select Committees is in many cases to publish their minutes of proceedings separately from their reports, which under Standing Order No. 80 they are permitted to do. Nothing irregular has taken place.

BRITISH STEEL CORPORATION

Mr. Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to raise a matter which I submit affects the rights of Members in this House, and of which I have given notice in advance both to the Lord President of the Council and to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) who are both affected by this matter.
In the debate yesterday on the first Motion relating to the Summer Adjournment, my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) said:
I presume, and one imagines that the Leader of the House will give an assurance at once, that there will not be any statement of Government policy affecting the steel industry generally whilst the House is in recess. I imagine that the Government will make it quite clear that such a statement would have to be made in the House of Commons itself."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th August, 1972; Vol. 842, c. 1562.]
This was reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) when he intervened in the reply of the Lord President to ask:

Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to respond to the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) that the major statement which is expected should not be made during the Summer Recess but should be made in Parliament when Parliament is in session?
The Leader of the House responded immediately by saying:
I noted that request, and the House can assume that any major policy statements for which the Government have responsibility will be made to the House. … Any major statement"—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) will help me. Nothing that he has said so far is a matter of order for the Chair.

Mr. Kaufman: I am arriving at it almost immediately. However, I felt it necessary, in fairness to everyone, to relate what took place yesterday. Perhaps I might complete my quotation. The Leader of the House said:
Any major statement of policy by the present Government will certainly be made to the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th August, 1972; Vol. 842, c. 1563–4.]
We took that as an assurance. However, on today's Order Paper we see Question No. 159 for Written Answer which reads:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has determined a financial objective for the British Steel Corporation; and whether he will now complete the capital reconstruction of the Corporation provided for in the Iron and Steel Act, 1972.
That clearly is a planted Question, put down to obtain a major statement of policy from the Government. I do not in any way accuse the Lord President of having said what he said yesterday in bad faith. I believe that he was completely unaware of this Question—

Mr. Rost: On a point of order—

Mr. William Hamilton: Sit down. My hon. Friend for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is raising a point of order.

Mr. Kaufman: As I was saying, I believe that the Leader of the House was completely unaware that this Question, which was put down yesterday, would go on the Order Paper. Nevertheless, the House has been placed in a difficult position in that, despite the assurance of the Lord President about a major aspect of steel policy, there is a Question on the


Order Paper for Written Answer, the answer to which hon. Members will not see until the House is in recess. What is more, my right hon. and hon. Friends who speak for the Opposition on these matters have not been given notice of the Written Answer so that, whatever transpires today, no one on the Opposition Front Bench will be able to deal with the matter adequately.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a matter in which the House has been gravely affronted and that recompense should be made to the House so that the pledge given by the Leader of the House may be fulfilled.

Mr. Rost: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek a direction from you that the phrase "planted question" be withdrawn? As you will know, over the time that I have been in this House I have put down numerous questions relating to the steel industry. I have a constituency interest in it. I object to the suggestion that I am able to put down Questions on these pressing matters only if they are planted.

Mr. William Hamilton: Was it planted or not?

Mr. Speaker: Order. As to whether the word "planted" is a reflection on the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost), I am not sure. Certainly during my 27 years as a Member of this House very many Questions have been planted by both sides. I do not think that there is any objectionable inference in the word "planted".
As for the point raised by the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), whatever other comments may be appropriate on the matter, it is nothing whatever to do with the Chair.

Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not it proper to raise from this side of the House, in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) said, the question whether an effort has been made by the Government to seek an opportunity to make a statement on this matter? I submit to you that it is one of the gravest importance to the House. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ardwick in that

I am certain that the Leader of the House had no knowledge when he addressed the House yesterday that a statement of this kind was to be made today in a Written Answer or by any other means. Either the reply to the Question raises important matters, which is presumably the reason why the Question was put down originally, or it contains no fresh matter, in which case it is more than likely that the Question would not have been put down.
I suggest that the Question deals with precisely the matter that was put to the Leader of the House yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman went out of his way to say that a Government statement would be made in this House. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not have said that had he thought that a Written Reply to a Question covering a matter of such wide-ranging importance as this were to be made the following day.
I ask you as a point of order, Mr. Speaker, whether, in the circumstances, you have received from the Government a request that a statement should be made today, even though that in itself would be an inadequate way of dealing with a matter which should have been dealt with many days ago so that hon. Members representing steel constituencies had a proper opportunity to raise matters affecting their constituencies. It is a matter of supreme importance which is causing great anxiety throughout all the steel constituencies. This is shameful behaviour from the Government, and it is even more shameful if they do not follow it with a statement here and now.

Mr. Speaker: I have received no request to make a statement.

Mr. R. Carr: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if I might be allowed to comment. Last Thursday, in reply to a question on the business statement I said:
My right hon. Friend is committed as soon as possible—but I do not think that it will be before the rising of the House for the summer—to making a statement about the long-term strategy of the British Steel Corporation's investment plans."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 3rd August, 1972; Vol. 842, c. 970]
Rightly or wrongly, when I was being pressed about this yesterday I had in


mind this major strategic statement. The words that I used yesterday were:
…the House can assume that any major policy statements for which the Government have responsibility will be made to the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th August, 1972; Vol. 842, c. 1564.]
I want it to be quite clear that I was in my heart thinking about what I had said last week. I knew that there was a Question down for Written Answers today. I had noticed it. That is about the financial targets of the capital reconstruction of the steel industry. These are totally different matters and much less important. This is not the major capital investment strategy which, rightly or wrongly, I had in mind. What I had in mind was my answer the previous week. I think that financial targets have been set for the nationalised industries by this Government and by previous Governments on a number of occasions without making statements in the House.

Mr. John Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is highly irregular. I have ruled that this is not a matter of order. It is a matter for discussion, debate and comment. In the interests of Private Members with business later, I cannot allow it to continue.

Mr. Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Some time ago several hon. Members representing steel constituencies were referring to the kind of statement to which the Lord President has now referred and they were told, quite apart from the exchanges which took place yesterday—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not a point of order.

Mr. Mendelson: I have not reached it yet.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) is now discussing what hon. Members representing steel constituencies were told—

Mr. Mendelson: But, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: What is the point of order?

Mr. Mendelson: I had had only two sentences in which to try to make my

point of order. I think that I am entitled to make my submission as best I can. My hon. Friends representing steel constituencies made the request some time ago. They were told that these statements on the financial targets and on the Government's responsibility for the future of the steel industry would be made in Parliament. Therefore my point does not rest on the statement of the Lord President and the exchanges which took place yesterday. It rests on the abuse of the power of the executive to—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chair has no responsibility for the statements or actions of the Government.

COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Speaker: I must now rule on the privilege point.
Yesterday the hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) made a complaint of privilege arising out of a letter from the managing director of Messrs. Wiggins Teape Limited of Gateway House, Watling Street, London. The hon. Member submitted that certain words in the letter constituted a breach of the privileges of this House.
I have now had an opportunity of studying the letter and other related documents. My duty is only to rule whether in my view the hon. Member's complaint should be given precedence as a privilege issue over today's business. In my opinion, having taken into account all the circumstances, I do not think that the matter can be given that priority now.
In view of the time that the business has already taken, I shall have to alter the timings of the various debates. I will give the information to hon. Members concerned as soon as possible.

MAPLIN

12.40 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths): I will, with permission, make a statement about the Maplin project.
My right hon. Friend has already made clear that the nature of this project, its long time scale and the crucial issues of Government policy that it raises require substantial public sector involvement. The Government have therefore decided to seek powers to establish a Development


Authority to undertake the task of land reclamation; secondly, to make land available to the British Airports Authority for the airport and to the Port of London Authority for any seaport development that may be approved; thirdly, to promote, in close co-operation with the private sector, such commercial and industrial development as is consistent with the Government's regional policies; and, fourthly, to act as landlord for the entire complex.
Maplin will create a need for large-scale urban development in South-East Essex. My right hon. Friend intends that this shall be built to the highest environmental standards. The Government propose to designate a substantial area for development by a New Town Development Corporation, working in close collaboration with the local planning authorities. We expect to publish a draft designation order early next year.
On runways, our consultation document identified four possible sites—lettered A, B, C and D—from south-west to north-east. Broadly, the further north one goes the less the noise but the greater the cost. We have carefully considered all the representations made about siting. Many have favoured site D mainly on grounds that reduction of noise, however small, should override all other considerations. But site D is further offshore, in deeper water, and its extension into the Crouch estuary could complicate the hydraulic aspects of reclamation. It also creates major problems over removing the Shoeburyness military establishment, with serious risks of delay, and it would rule out any option for future access to the airport from the north.
Site A is strongly advocated by aviation interests on the grounds that it is the cheapest, quickest and easiest site to develop and causes least difficulty for the military withdrawal. Site A is also the choice of local authorities north of the Crouch.
Having carefully weighed all the evidence, the Government have decided that, within the limits of practicality, environmental considerations must be uppermost. This is why we chose to go to Maplin in the first place. So, notwithstanding the additional cost, the Government have decided to locate the runways at a northerly site—site C. This will have substantially the same environmental

advantages as site D, but without its physical difficulties. I understand this location is acceptable to Essex County Council, and we consider that it will safeguard the interests of Kent. I should add that the overall noise impact of the airport should be much less than envisaged by the Roskill Commission because of the development of quieter aircraft—a development the Government will do their utmost to foster.
Detailed work will be put in hand to reclaim enough land for the first two of the four runways for any seaport development, plus land for industrial and commercial development. Further reclamation will be undertaken when needed.

Mr. Crosland: I think it is quite wrong that a statement of such importance should be made on the day that the House rises when a large number of hon. Members have already gone away.
On the substance of the statement if we are to go ahead at Maplin about which I have grave doubts as the Under-Secretary knows, the proposals for a Development Authority and a New Town Development Corporation are right and imaginative. The choice of site can hardly be called an inspiring blow on behalf of the environment, but at any rate it could have been much worse.
I should like to put three short specific questions to the Under-Secretary. First, what would be the additional cost of site D over site C, taking only the actual money cost and ignoring the imputed cost of additional travelling time, a factor which has messed up all these calculations over the last three or four years?
Secondly, so that we know the full social cost of going to Maplin, what is the approximate number of houses which will be destroyed as a result of the new communications network which will be needed to serve the new airport?
Thirdly, has the hon. Gentleman noticed the irony in the fact that, on the day that he makes a final announcement on an entirely traditional airport, a study group of the United States Government has urged that Government to go ahead with the first of a new type of airport especially for STOL?

Mr. Griffiths: I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman's four points as


follows. First, the right hon. Gentleman complains about the making of this statement on the day that the House rises for the Summer Recess. The right hon. Gentleman should recall that the statement on Stansted was made on the day that the House rose for the Whitsun Recess that year under the Labour Administration.
The additional physical costs of recovering land from the sea for site D would be about £16 million more than for site C, but a number of additional costs would have to be taken into account. To put it in crude terms—in terms of the number of houses which would be relieved from the 35NNI contour—site D would cost approximately £160,000 per house relieved of noise.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the number of houses that might or might not be affected by the access corridor to the airport. This depends entirely on where the corridor will be. That is still a matter for our consultants. As soon as my right hon. Friend has the results of the consultants' report he will no doubt inform the House.
Finally, the right hon. Gentleman raised the question of traditional airports. This will be the world's first environmental airport, of which we shall be proud.

Sir Bernard Braine: While recognising that site C is certainly preferable on environmental grounds to site A and is to be welcomed on that score, is my hon. Friend aware that many of us are nevertheless disappointed that site D was not chosen? Will he spell out in more detail the reasons for its rejection?
Secondly, how many homes are saved from intrusive noise as a result of choosing site C over site A?
Thirdly, will my hon. Friend confirm that the decision which he announced makes it virtually certain that the road and rail access routes must now pass north of the urban development in my constituency for which we have been pressing from the outset?
Finally, is my hon. Friend aware that the decision to set up a new town development agency is to be warmly welcomed provided, and only provided, that it is run from the outset with a clear mandate

and all necessary powers to preserve and improve the environment of South-East Essex in conjunction with the elected local authorities?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. The objections to site D, which were very carefully considered by my right hon. Friend, are that it is in deeper water and a good deal more offshore, that it would preclude the option of northern access, which is of great importance, not least on environmental grounds, that it would greatly complicate the problems of military withdrawal and, in addition, that there is very high extra cost.
Concerning the number of houses relieved by the choice of site C, more than 900 houses which would have been caught in the noise shadow at site A have been removed from that noise shadow by my right hon. Friend's decision.
Regarding the routes to the airport, I must ask my hon. Friend to await the results of our consultants' investigations because it is not yet possible to say where the corridor will go.
I agree with my hon. Friend about the new town. This project will be developed in close collaboration with the Essex County Council and other local authorities. We are determined that it shall be done with a large measure of private investment and to the highest possible environmental standards.

Mr. Crouch: I hope that my hon. Friend will not ask us to sympathise with him too much in recognising the disadvantages, as he has tried to describe them, of site D. After all, site D was offered to us as a site being considered by the Secretary of State. However, I recognised that this is the second time the Government have gone against the recommendations of Roskill. Foulness was not recommended by Roskill, but Roskill recommended site A. I am happy this second time to agree with the Government in not choosing site A which, in my opinion, was environmentally almost disastrous.
May I remind my hon. Friend of what the Secretary of State said in his foreword to the consultation document? He said that Maplin had the advantage over inland sites in that most of the sound would be dissipated over the sea. He


reminded those who were studying the problem that residual noise
remains naturally a matter of public concern
It certainly does to me and to thousands living in North-East Kent. May we have an assurance that the Secretary of State will not forget his undertaking and that he will continue to remember that residual noise is a problem? Will he take such steps as are necessary to ensure in the planning of the airport that the flight paths and the stacking areas are as far as possible over the sea and that night flying restrictions will be taken into account?

Mr. Griffiths: I can give that assurance. We shall do our best to ensure that the patterns of take-offs and landings from the new airport and the controls on night flying are so exercised as to relieve as far as possible any noise nuisance to the people of North Kent, Essex or anywhere else. This is a case where environmental considerations have been placed uppermost and it is a great success for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that he has been able to ensure that environmental considerations prevail over all others.

Mr. Jessel: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the sooner that Maplin is in operation the sooner it will be possible to give some relief to the people living near Heathrow Airport who are suffering from airport noise? With this in mind will he do all he can to hasten the introduction into service of Maplin?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, my hon. Friend, who so frequently and rightly has sought to put forward the interests of his constituents who live in the neighbourhood of Heathrow Airport, is right. We are endeavouring to develop the project by 1980 and the sooner we get on with it the sooner we can bring relief not only to the people living near Heathrow but to those living near Luton, Stansted and Gatwick.

Mr. Warren: Will my hon. Friend state what limitations will be incurred by the selection of site C and the failure to provide a cross-wind runway on that site for use in all weathers?

Mr. Griffiths: Not without notice, but we shall have regard to the maximum

possible safety considerations at this airport.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Only if the remaining hon. Members will make their questions as short as possible will they all get in.

Mr. Roger White: On the Kent side of the estuary there will be no spin-off from this project. My hon. Friend mentioned that new aircraft would be coming forward. While one appreciates that the TriStar type aircraft and so on will have reduced noise levels, this will not be the case with Concorde. May I remind my hon. Friend that we shall be looking forward to—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have asked hon. Members to be as quick as possible. The hon. Member must not remind the Under-Secretary; he must ask—and he must ask quickly.

Mr. White: Will my hon. Friend make a close study of night flights when this project is in operation?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: As environmental considerations have led to the selection of this airport, will the site chosen reduce the danger of bird strike? Has my hon. Friend seen the letter from the director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that about 180,000 gulls were seen there on one day in 1968 and that there are always tens of thousands of birds in the area?

Mr. Griffiths: We have taken into account the possible risks not only to the birds but also to the aircraft. My right hon. Friend has asked the Nature Conservancy to study the problems, using substantial funds provided by my Department, and to consider what best to do about the gulls on the one hand and the Brent Geese on the other. We shall do our best not only to minimise the danger to aircraft and people but also to see whether there are ways of relocating the birds where possible.

Mr. Moate: Does my hon. Friend recognise that my constituency more than any other will suffer from the noise problems created by the airport? The decision he announced will be received


with great disappointment, distress and some anger on the environmental grounds. Does he not agree that the decision means the rejection of the opportunity to put one and a half miles of the noise shadow over the sea and that instead it will now be put over the land and over people's homes? 11 will be seen as a victory for the Treasury which wishes to save £18½ million in real and immediate costs in an exercise that will involve hundreds of millions of pounds of Government money. May we have an assurance that no steps will be taken during the Summer Recess on this matter before the House has had a full opportunity to debate it?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. We must now proceed as far as we can to planning. Of course we shall need to come to Parliament for the necessary powers to set up the New Town Development Corporation and there will be a full discussion of the draft designation order for the new town. On the point that my hon. Friend makes about environmental considerations being sacrificed to the Treasury, if only he knew the reality of the situation he would accept that precisely the opposite happened.

Mr. McCrindle: As considerable planning blight has been becoming evident

over the whole of South Essex in the last few months, will my hon. Friend bear in mind the necessity of announcing the line of road and rail communications at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, but my hon. Friend will recognise that in order to minimise environmental damage and to ensure that road and rail access is planned properly we must study all of the possibilities. We shall do so as quickly as possible.

Dr. Glyn: In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, (Mr. Jessel) the Minister said that the new airport would relieve eventual congestion at London Airport. Is it intended that virtually all the traffic at London Airport should be diverted to Foulness? When are we likely to get considerable relief in the locality of Heathrow? Will it be ten, 12 or 15 years before that happens?

Mr. Griffiths: I cannot say that there will be a massive diversion from London Airport and the other airports to Maplin, but rather that the very large increase in flights will be taken care of by the growth of Maplin rather than those flights being concentrated at the existing airports.

STANDING ORDER No. 9 (APPLICATIONS)

Mr. John Mendelson: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I am sorry but the hon. Gentleman cannot do that because I cannot accept such a Motion. There is no way in which it can be taken. It must either be taken at 7 o'clock this evening or at 3.30 tomorrow afternoon and by then we shall be scattered to the ends of the earth.

Mr. Mendelson: Does that mean that I shall have an opportunity on the day the House returns from the recess of seeking an emergency debate, and if I do so will it be regarded as the first opportunity at which I could move this Motion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I would not like to give a quick ruling on that, but I can assure the hon. Member that anything he is entitled to will, of course, be granted by the Chair.

Mr. Mendelson: Further to that point of order. It is, of course, of cardinal importance that a Member who wishes to raise a subject under Standing Order No. 9 should do so at the earliest possible moment. Your original reply was no surprise to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I now seek an assurance from you that any such application made when the House returns will be regarded as an application at the earliest opportunity because that is why I am raising the matter now?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes. The hon. Member has logic on his side there, and no doubt the matter will be given proper consideration.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION (AMENDMENT)

1.0 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a tribunal to secure the compliance by Government departments with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.

The object of the Bill is to make recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration binding upon Government Departments. I confess that I was surprised to discover, and so were some of my hon. Friends and some members of the Opposition, that these recommendations are not regarded as binding on Government Departments.
I was motivated to bring in this Bill by the refusal of the Inland Revenue, supported so far, I am sorry to say, by Treasury Ministers, to accept the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration in the case of a constituent of mine, Mr. John Hope Beach. This is not the time to go into Mr. Beech's case, which I have already raised, and intend to continue raising until I get satisfaction, but Mr. Beech, no less than I, is concerned with the general principle of the Commissioners powers.
The point of having a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration is surely to give people a further means of redress when they are, or when they think they are, unjustly treated by Government Departments, and if the office is seen to fulfil this function it will strengthen people's belief in parliamentary democracy. Thanks to the admirable way in which the two successive holders of the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration have carried out their task there is now a pretty widely held view that "If a Government Department does you down, the Ombudsman will see you right"
On the other hand, it cannot really be said that the Commissioner has been overhasty in his condemnation of Government Departments, and, as emerges from his report, he has been ready on most occasions to accept a mere apology as a sufficient remedy for the grievance alleged by an individual complainant. It is precisely because he has been so careful to take a realistic view of administrative requirements that his office, at first held in some suspicion by Government Departments, has come to be accepted by them. With very few exceptions Government Departments have hastened to comply with his recommendation.
In this context, the refusal of the Inland Revenue to accept the Commissioner's recommendation in the case of


my constituent, Mr. Beech, marks a most unwelcome move in the wrong direction, the more so as no Treasury Minister has even attempted to produce any justification for this refusal. It is quite true that Ministers have produced some very plausible arguments to refute the Commissioner's recommendations in this case, but that is another matter and is in no way related to the entirely separate question of whether the Commissioner's recommendation, right or wrong, should be accepted by the Department to which it is addressed. If the idea should get around that Government Departments can and will ignore recommendations when they are really awkward, and, furthermore, will give no reason for the refusal, the ordinary man's belief in his democratic institutions will take a knock; and that belief is not so strong that it can take many knocks.
When the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill was introduced, the possibility that Government Departments might ignore his recommendations was not taken into consideration. I do not for one moment claim that the number of instances in which Departments have ignored the recommendations of the Commissioner have been either numerous or flagrant, but there have been a handful, and the effect will be cumulative. Each case which is ignored creates a precedent which makes it easier for future cases to be swept aside. If this process is allowed to continue unchecked, the ultimate deterrent, the report by the Select Committee on the Commissioner's annual report which necessarily is made a long time later begins in turn to lose its impact. I believe that the number of unrectified cases may be approaching the point where something needs to be done to reverse the trend. It is therefore necessary to find some way of ensuring that these recommendations get treated with greater seriousness by Government Departments.
By this Bill I suggest that we should set up a tribunal to ensure compliance by Government Departments with the Commissioner's recommendations. The composition and powers of the tribunal are matters for further discussion but

could perhaps be based on the existing Select Committee, or, if it is felt that it is somewhat cumbrous to set up new institutions, maybe a simpler solution could be found. It could, for example, be achieved merely by altering one word in the existing Act so that, whereas at present the Commissioner is permitted by Section 10(3) to make a special report to Parliament, in cases where no remedy has been or is likely to be offered he should instead be required to make such a report. The object would be to get the Select Committee to breathe rather more heavily down the necks of Government Departments. But, whatever solution is adopted, I believe that it is necessary to check any tendency by Government Departments to frustrate the operations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I want briefly to support my hon. Friend, and to say—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I cannot take a second speech. This is not an interjection, and in any case interjections are not proper with a Ten-Minute Bill. I cannot take a speech unless it be in opposition.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir A. Meyer, Dr. Glyn, Mr. Michael Hamilton, Mr. Selwyn Gummer, Mr. Knox and Mr. Cormack.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION (AMENDMENT)

Bill to establish a tribunal to secure the compliance by Government departments with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 17th October and to be printed. [Bill 195.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

TOURISM

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Before I call the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) I should inform the House that Mr. Speaker has made some adjustments to the times for debating the various subjects. The adjustment has been posted in the usual place. This debate which we begin now should end at two o'clock, and the remaining debates will last about 35 minutes each.

1.8 p.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: I am raising today not the problem of too many tourists but the problem of too many tourists in too few places. After all, there are more than 50 million of us in this island and never at any time are there more than half a million tourists. However, those of us who work or live in central London, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon, and so on—the great resorts—often feel that there are too many tourists. Central London particularly has this feeling, and we know that nine out of ten of the visitors to this country spend some time in London.
I face this problem. I work in central London and my home is in Cambridge. When I find difficulty in crossing the road even to come to the House because of the swarms of tourists I am tempted to feel as the citizens of Florence, for example, feel, that enough is enough, and that this corner of the island is beginning to sink under the weight of the visitors.
In London today, as a result of Government intervention over the last few years, there is enough hotel accommodation for tourists with money. I shall come in a moment to the problem of the young tourists without money. There are at this moment many vacant rooms in the expensive hotels. Just as the problem of accommodation in London was solved by Government intervention, so Government intervention is needed to solve the problem which arises very occasionally—but it does arise—of bad treatment and discourtesy in hotels. I think that I am right in saying that Britain is the only country in Western Europe where the Government stand aside and allow tourists very occasionally—but do allow them from time to time—tobe victimised by hoteliers. Even a year or so ago the head of our

tourist organisation could be heard denouncing a proposal for classifying and registering hotels as "bureaucratic nonsense". That age is over and there are modern minds in charge of the British Tourist Authority.
A year ago it was reported in the Financial Times that a German and his wife went to a hotel in Victoria and were told at the reception desk that they could not stay unless they paid for three nights in advance and that that was the law of England. They paid, but when they went upstairs they found that their accommodation was totally unsatisfactory. They were refused a refund. There is no system at present of hotel registration, and, therefore, there is no way in which we could have a discipline on such hoteliers.
I want the Government to work with the BTA in having a register of all accommodation with classifications. I should like the Government to go further and to have powers of removal of people's names from the register for behaviour such as that I have outlined.
According to a calculation made in The Times, it would cost only £3 per year for each hotelier to compile a register of prices and a voluntary system of classification. I want the Government to work with the BTA in compiling a register of all hotels, guest houses and so on, together with classification on accommodation and such things as facilities for meals, and particular amenities such as outstanding architecture or the fact that the hotel is near good fishing and so on. Above all, I want a central pool of accurate information and the requirement that every visitor is provided with written notification of the cost of his room and services when he checks in.
One of the biggest tasks before the Government is to encourage the BTA to spread the tourists over the country as a whole. I have emphasised that I consider not that we have too many tourists but that we have them in too few places, particularly concentrated in London and the other well known tourist centres. There are welcome signs that the BTA and the national and regional boards are succeeding in this, but more information must be given to visitors about the provinces.
I want to mention one particular city which does not occur to many people as


being the centre of a tourist area. I have no particular connection with the city of Sheffield. It is certainly not every one's idea of a holiday centre. Yet modem clean air regulations make Sheffield a most pleasant city. Because of the shape and size of our island, 26 of the most beautiful large houses in England are within 25 miles of the centre of Sheffield, and the country surrounding Sheffield is as lovely as that anywhere in Britain.
It would not be appropriate to use my time to give a catalogue of unfamiliar tourist centres, so I shall concentrate on a particular area that I know well. My constituency is in the heart of rural England, right in the centre of the country, in Northamptonshire. It is certainly not a tourist area, but in my constituency there are 68 villages, each one with a church which seems to be more beautiful than the church in the preceding village. We have Rockingham Castle, which stands in a lovely position on a hill, and we have countryside as fine as anywhere in England. We have the unusual offer of a garden city, Corby, which is also one of the leading steel towns of Europe.
My constituency falls in the East Midlands, and like the region generally, as a result of Government intervention, accommodation for tourists has increased rapidly there over the last few years. The number of new hotels built in the East Midlands has been twice that of the average number built in relation to the population of the other regions. But there is one figure which leads me to my next point. Between July, 1971, and March, 1972, in most weeks these hotels in the East Midlands region were only half full. My next point, which obviously follows from that, is on the importance of spreading not only the area of tourism but also the season.
Let us remember that people do not come to Britain for sunshine and to lie on beaches sipping cool drinks. If they did they would need their heads examined. They come to see Britain, which is a country in the north-west of Europe. It can be argued that we have already spread our season. For example there were more visitors to Britain in January this year than there were in June ten years ago. In January, February and March of this year half of theatre audiences were from

overseas. But more must be done. After all, so much of Britain is at its best in winter. Our theatres, shops and restaurants are not out of doors. The tourists do not come for the purpose of sitting at out-of-door cafes.
Because of our language and history we have certain unique obligations which we must discharge, whether or not we like it. For example, the United States of America has inherited from us the English common law. What could be more appropriate than that every few years the American Bar Association should wish to hold its annual conference in London? What indeed could be more appropriate than that the authorities of our Palace of Westminster should allow that association's principal ceremony to be held in Westminster Hall, which for centuries has been the home of our courts of law. But the members come in July, 12,000 of them counting wives, children and followers. The Government with their powers over hospitality—and they are hospitable to these visitors—must in future say "No, it must be October or November, or not at all." I am sure that the BTA would welcome such a lead.
I now mention something that is not immediately apparent to the citizens of London. I have had criticism of so many tourists coming here. Apart from the benefits to this country of the export trade, invisible and visible, Londoners owe to the tourists the existence of many theatres, resturants and shops. I am saying only "many" of them. I have seen calculations which would make it correct to say "most" of them, but I do not go as far as that.
I said that I would refer to young tourists. According to the last edition of Time Out, the BTA estimates that nearly 2 million of Britain's visitors between the ages of 16 and 24 will visit London, whether or not we like it. There are practical advantages to Britain in having these young people, of course. There are commercial advantages because in 10, 20 or 30 years they will come with their wives, husbands and children and spend money. But there are even greater advantages. These young people will get a better understanding of our institutions and our language.
It is impossible to over-emphasise the rôle of our language today. We know


about North America, but not many people realise what is happening in Europe. I have presided over many conferences and meetings on the Continent of Europe, where there are only two languages at official functions, English and French. It is striking how many of the young people, if they have to speak one of the two official languages, choose to speak in English rather than in French. For example, if an Italian or a Turk is of the older generation and has grey hair or a bald head, he will probably speak in French. But if he does not have grey hair or a bald head, he will almost certainly speak in English. We have to consider this and the opportunity it gives this country to project its way of life.
Time Out, in the article to which I have referred, also mentions the problem of housing for young people in London and says that the number of beds on the London tourist register costing under £1·50 per night is only 11,000. Voluntary organisations do great work. I saw a picture in The Guardian yesterday of a camp run by Christian Action on Hackney Marches. I know about the Young Men's Christian Association. I also know of the work of the Youth Hostels Association, and, having joined in 1931, am one of its oldest members. The fact remains that more needs to be done, and only the Government can give a lead.
Incidentally, I commend Time Out for printing a list of accommodation suitable and available for young visitors. Many of the young visitors are scruffy, most of them are over-hairy, and they have attracted the most hostile criticism. However, we must accept them. This is what happens today. I am told by the experts that the phrase is that this is a form of international social tourism. It is not a very attractive term, but that is what it is. It is increasing rapidly.
For any of us who can look ahead 50 years—not many of us can—I am told that the calculations of the International Bureau of Social Tourism are that in this period youth travel will increase 10 times as much as ordinary tourism.
What are we to do? I have suggested that the Government can take action. I want to put the matter in perspective. At a travel function not long ago the Duke of Edinburgh used these words:

It is no good talking about international friendship unless ordinary people are prepared to encourage it … Only travel abroad can break down the mediaeval mentality which fosters vendetta and suspicion.
We have much to offer young people. First, we look out on the world: we are a former imperial power, and we have the habit of looking out. We are a European country. We have an unusual diversity of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. Some countries have greater painters—not many. Some countries have greater musicians—not many. Some countries have great dramatists, but none has any greater. Some countries have great languages, but none has any greater. Some countries have tolerance and a spirit of live and let live, but in none are they more deeply ingrained than here in Britain.
I want people to come here and see us. I want the Government to do what they can to encourage people to come here and travel widely in Britain, and to come at different times of the year. In this decade of this century a friendly greeting to a foreigner in a pub costs less than a battleship and may well be much more effective.

1.23 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I have been very interested in the disjointed but nevertheless attractive speech of the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas). At one stage I refrained from intervening though I felt impelled to do so.
I commend to the right hon. Member some points with regard to the different areas of Britain. After all, we have an English tourist board which is an effective board. It has set up a number of area boards. I know a little of the work which is being done in the East Midlands area. One encouragement which the right hon. Gentleman can give there is to ensure that all the local hoteliers and caterers are effective members of the area organisation and play a full part. The Act which set up the Tourist Board was introduced by a Labour Government, although the proposals with which I am concerned were moved by Conservative Members, so that it is very much an all-party concern.
There could be a great deal of promotion of attractive projects in the East Midlands to fill the hotels there in the


off-peak six months if the area board, in association with the British Tourist Authority, which deals with overseas visitors, were to promote projects which would be attractive to overseas visitors out of season. I have in mind the various historic castles, buildings, museums and parks, as well as any attractive modern industrial project. It is that type of thing which will enable us to succeed in attracting many more foreign visitors from the Metropolis into the provinces.
We do not treat British tourists in Britain sufficiently fairly. Our own people should come first. After all, five million of us may go on holiday overseas, but more than six times that number take their holidays at home. I want to see a greatly increased standard of amenity and improved accommodation at home. There should be an immediate major programme to train the staff in this country for the catering which is necessary.
It is too ludicrous for words that British waiters have to take Italian names because in some way it is thought more attractive to be an Italian waiter than a British waiter. This must cease. It is ludicrous that, for example, employees at the Dorchester, Grosvenor House and the Savoy should use false names because they believe that there is something inherently attractive about foreign catering employees.
About six months ago, in response to my question as to what was the best thing which could be done, Max Joseph said to me, "Billy, if you can find 20,000 Italian waiters, that will make our staff position effective in hotels throughout Britain. That is the greatest need, for there is considerable job opportunity in the catering industry". I said, "Max, I am not prepared to do that. What I am prepared to do is to advocate immediately that there should be 20,000 to 30,000 more good English waiters." Those extra waiters need not be English-born. Some of the best waiters are Pakistanis. Some of the best barmen may be West Indians, Welsh, Irish, Scottish or English.
I want to see an immediate use of our training colleges in the expansion of the training programme. The courses at present are part time. Therefore, they are not advanced courses. They can be carried out by technical training colleges

without the Government's authority merely on the decision of the boards of governors. This was confirmed to me today by a Minister at the Department of Education and Science.
This means that we can act quickly to set up courses of about 14 weeks duration for the training of waiters, barmen and others who are necessary to fill the 93,000 vacancies in the catering industry. Then hotels and other establishments in the Provinces would be able to recruit the waiters and other staffs they need and do their recruiting to a large extent from the existing pool of unemployed.
We would also get rid of the absurd notion that there is something infra dig—I must use a foreign phrase for it—about being a waiter. There is nothing infra dig about being a waiter. My own technical training college trains superb catering staff, many of whom spend part of their training at Buckingham Palace. I am sure that none of those young trainees feels that he is entering into the community to do a job which is not worthwhile.
There is a vast increase in the number of hotel places being created in London, the East Midlands and the Midlands generally. However, this is not so in the South-East, nor along that part of the coast represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain). The main reason is the one which the right hon. Member for Kettering has just given, namely that we do not feel sure that we can get the accommodation filled all the year round. There is thus not the demand to build because there is not the certainty of being able to meet the demand. But the first essential has already been fulfilled by the English Tourist Board. The Government have accepted the report, and I understand that it is to be introduced shortly. The first essential is to find out the nature and extent of the accommodation which we have in this country, and to classify it. Thereafter we should see how it can best be deployed.
I strike one note of warning. Some accommodation in this country at present is becoming over-priced for what it is worth. Certainly it is true to say that the accommodation, though not the food, is much more highly priced in the United Kingdom than it is in France. The price of food is another matter.
We not only need to ensure that the accommodation is properly classified; we need also to see that the area boards, the English Tourist Board and the British Tourist Authority, with the active co-operation of the hoteliers, the caterers and their associations, ensure that the travel agents have full details of the accommodation available. This will in turn involve setting up suitable places in this country where people can find out what accommodation is available. This has been done effectively at the port of entry at Dover. It is also being well done in Grosvenor Gardens, London, and at Victoria Station. We need to have this facility throughout the country, so that travel agents and visitors who are travelling independently know where to look.
This accommodation will become more widespread and better if it is accompanied by proper staff training as a matter of urgency. I think we can give an impetus to the improvement of our amenities which will serve not only our own tourists within Britain but those who come to our shores.

Sir G. de Freitas: The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that my speech was disjointed. May I say that it was disjointed because I left out large sections of it in order to give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to speak.

Mr. Rees-Davies: If I may say so, I did not intend my remark as a criticism. I thought the right hon. Gentleman made an attractive speech. What I meant was that it did not follow one particular theme. It was disjointed in the sense that he covered a number of different subjects. I entirely accept what the right hon. Gentleman said.

1.33 p.m.

Miss Joan Hall: I am afraid that my speech, too, will be disjointed because I shall have to throw two-thirds of it away. I prefer to deliver one-third properly rather than three-thirds badly.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) for initiating this debate, which is of great importance. I hope that in the autumn we shall have another opportunity to debate the matter in greater detail.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-

Davies) that training is required for those who wish to work in the catering industry. I am one of the few people in this House who have experience as a waitress, and I can assure my hon. Friend that of prime importance is one's attitude to the job. We can train people until we are blue in the face, but if there is not the right attitude we are wasting our time. It is not part of the British character to desire to serve people. There seems to be a great dislike of saying "Yes, Sir" and "No, Sir", as though one belittled oneself in using those words. I think waiting is a career of great interest, and with a future, if only people will adopt the right attitude of mind towards the persons whom they are serving.
Tourism has built up rapidly. I worked with the old British Travel Holidays Association in 1955. In those days we had the great hope that we would get 1 million tourists in this country. It is believed that in 1972 over 7 million foreign visitors will have come to this country, building up in 1980 to about 18 million overseas visitors. However, approximately 70 per cent. of those visitors come only to London. As the right hon. Member for Kettering said, this upsets the normal living habits, standards and way of life of the people who live in London and particularly in the centre of London.
I think it is important to mention that tourists are abused by a very small section of people, who fleece them in a number of ways. It is said, and I am sure quite accurately, that for visitors to Britain "top of the pops" are the friendly and hospitable people in this country. But there is this abuse of over-charging, particularly in the area of Westminster. This is done by unlicensed street traders. They are vultures of the worst order. I was speaking to a Swiss girl last week who, on coming out of the Tate Gallery, wished to buy an ice-cream and was asked 20p for a small cornet. She had the courage to refuse, but many tourists who argue the toss about the cost are shouted at and abused, and naturally they do not like to be shown up; in addition, they do not have a good command of English, and they usually pay up.
There are many worse cases than this incident. I was talking to the local authority people in Westminster yesterday. They told me of a case of a £5


note which was given for two ice creams and 5p was given in change. It was impossible for the purchaser to persuade the vendor to give any more. There are incredible cases of abuse by unlicensed street traders in the area of Westminster where the vast majority of tourists come to see the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and so on.
On the question of fining these unlicensed street traders, most of them do not have a fixed address. They usually stay at doss houses, and when they are tracked to a certain doss house they are not known. If it is possible to take one of these traders to court, having ascertained his address, there is no general public statute under which such a person can be charged. He can be charged only under a local LCC statute of 1947, as amended in 1967. The penalty for a first offence is a fine of £20, which is nothing to these people. They are quite prepared to pay the fine, and the next day they are back fleecing the tourists.
I should like the Minister to say whether he has in mind any suggestion whereby offences of this nature can be more heavily penalised. But the true answer does not lie in penalties. I believe that street traders should by law have to display the prices of their products. Notable offenders are to be found in the ice cream and hot dog trade. Most reputable street traders, who are licensed, display their prices—for example, fruit and vegetable stalls. If this could be enforced, the abuse would stop immediately, and so would the ill will that is created for this country among overseas people who will not come here again because of an experience they had years previously when perhaps they were overcharged for an ice cream. If this abuse could be cleared up, we would have a much happier future.
There are two other points which I wanted to mention but I will not deal with them in detail. One concerned the question of getting tourists out of London. People who are connected with the tourist industry are concerned only with hotels in London. They do not want to know about north of Potters Bar. They still seem to think that we are all "wogs" north of Potters Bar. They do not want

to know about the assets which exist out of London. There is very little incentive for the pubs and guest houses to improve their premises. Although people come to my constituency to see where "Wuthering Heights" was written, they do not want "Wuthering Heights" conditions in their bedroom, bathroom or dining room.

1.40 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: No one who has represented a seaside constituency for 13 years, as I have, and attended every meeting on the subject can fail to appreciate the problems here. A number of them have already been raised by the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas). We are very grateful to him for the interest which he takes in tourism, an interest which, unfortunately, the Labour Party does not seem to share. One has only to think of the small attendance of right hon. and hon. Members opposite at such debates as this to realise that they do not take the interest which they should, and we are the more grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the matter now and giving us an opportunity to debate it.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) made some telling points about training, and I endorse what he said. It is ironical that in Kent now—particularly in Folkestone, where we have one of the highest unemployment rates for some years—there are a great many vacancies in the hotel and catering trade. This is the pattern throughout the country. It seems an extraordinary facet of the British character that people think that serving in restaurants or hotels is not in keeping with what they feel they ought to do; yet, when all is said and done, we have a reputation throughout the world as good hosts. We are good hosts. We welcome guests. But, for some reason or other, the hotel and catering trade does not attract a sufficient number of people who realise the great prospects for them in it.
I pay a special tribute to what the tourist boards have done in this matter. They have realised that more needs to be done, but I do not believe that it will be done unless the hotel and catering trade itself understands the problem


and takes action on its own account, too. Our hotels and catering establishments have not done enough in the past, and they have not had the great reputation which they should, and can, have.
One has only to see the improvement in the food served now in the ordinary English pub to realise that there is an interest in good cooking and good service. We complain about our weather, but I have always found that a good hotel, well run, with good service and good food will attract people, regardless of the weather. People like the other amenities which we can offer. In our seaside towns now, we are developing many attractive amenities.
The hotel industry must understand that it is old-fashioned. It must realise that better accommodation for staff must be offered. It must offer more attractive hours for staff. Also, there must be better uniforms for staff. The old-fashioned idea that a waiter should wear an uncomfortable stiff shirt and tail coat if he is to be a good waiter is thoroughly out of date. It is often easier to find staff to serve in some of the more modern bars and clubs and on ships because a more attractive uniform is woru. In the same way, with a more attractive uniform, there could be a great improvement in the number of waitresses. In this very building, a more attractive uniform would, I am sure, give far greater encouragement to waitresses. All these things must be taken into account.
I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government will do all it can to encourage the hotel industry to modernise its ideas towards its staff, the accommodation which it provides for staff, and the uniforms which are worn.

1.43 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): This has been a most helpful debate, and the contributions from all hon. Members who have spoken have been extremely useful. Before coming to the main subject, perhaps I may pick up the points raised by my hon. Friends the Members for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), who drew attention to the need to encourage the proper training of staff, with particular reference to the work of waiters, who are so important in this business.
Facilities for hotel and catering education in England and Wales are on a fairly substantial scale and are increasing. In November, 1970, there were nearly 25,000 students in attendance at non-advanced courses at grant-aided establishments of further education. I am advised that 4,000 attended courses for barmen and waiters, and that courses for these latter trades are now provided at 135 colleges. The proposal to extend the colleges' normal provision in the way suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet calls for consideration by the principals and governors concerned in the light of such evidence of demand as may be produced. They need to be satisfied that sufficient students—say, 12 or 15—would wish to attend so as to make such a course a viable proposition. I understand, however, that the principal in his own technical college in Thanet, for example, has said that he would be prepared to start a course and that the authorities have no objection. I hope that it will be successful, because I consider that both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe were on a powerful point in this respect.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) described certain deplorable practices which, she said, are occurring, particularly in London, and which, I have no doubt, would be very damaging to the whole concept of tourism and the impression which we give to overseas visitors. I have to tell her that ministerial responsibility for unlicensed street traders rests with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I assure her that I shall draw to his attention the points which she made, which were of concern to us all.
I have listened to the debate with great interest, and I consider that the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) has done a considerable service in reminding us of the many benefits which tourism in the broadest sense brings to this country. There is a danger that we are beginning to take the economic benefits for granted, and we should not do that. The record figures achieved last year were not achieved without a great deal of effort by many sectors of the industry and by our tourist organisations. Government help in the form of financial support towards both promotional work and the development of facilities, especially accommodation, also


played its part; and these efforts have been successful.
We have been successful in attracting more holidaymakers from other countries—they accounted for about half of the 7 million visits paid to this country last year—and we have been successful in attracting more business and conference visitors, people who play an important part in our economic life, though I entirely take the point made by the right hon. Gentleman that one must look carefully at the time at which these people choose to come to this country.
We have been successful in earning more foreign currency from tourism. Earnings from tourism in 1971 fell not far short of £500 million, and this takes no account of fares paid to British carriers, or of the major purchases which may be made by visitors while they are here. We have been successful also in retaining the interest of our own holiday-makers in taking holidays here.
The right hon. Gentleman's reminder of the importance of tourism is most timely. At this time of year, some people are liable to forget the valuable contribution which tourism makes to our export earnings and, instead, to grumble rather about the congestion which sometimes arises. No one—least of all our visitors, I imagine—will deny that there is congestion at certain times of the year. The problem is not unique to this country. People with children—I am one—generally take their holidays when the schools have closed, and most of us want to get away from the office, from the House, or from the kitchen sink when the weather is fine. This, naturally, creates certain problems. But we should not let the matter get out of perspective.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet reminded us, the number of foreign holiday-makers is still relatively small in relation to the 35 million of our own citizens who take their holidays in this country. The problem of congestion affects only a limited number of places—some of our most popular holiday resorts and, of course, specific points in London.
One of these points is precisely here in Westminster, where we have only to see the number of visitors who are attracted

—I hesitate to say by our eloquence—to this place—and I was intrigued to discover in the course of preparing for the debate that no fewer than 650,000 visitors, not all from overseas, visited the Palace of Westminster and no fewer than 196,000 actually came to the Gallery in only 184 sitting days. That is an indication of the sort of thing that attracts visitors, not only from abroad, but from other parts of the country. It is a fact of life, and we have to recognise it and take advantage of it.
I must dispel any idea that there is a shortage of accommodation in London. There is evidence of spare accommodation in all categories. Suggestions have been made particularly of difficulties with accommodation in the medium price brackets. While I am unable to comment on individual cases—and we will take note of what the right hon. Gentleman has said—the London Tourist Board has had no difficulty this year in finding hotel accommodation in the £2 to £4 a night bracket for the increasing number of visitors who apply to the board for that kind of accommodation.
I entirely endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about encouraging young visitors. I like young visitors to come to this country and it is a thoroughly satisfactory development for the future. This year there has been an ample supply of very cheap accommodation for young visitors. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned an article on this subject that appeared in one of the Press media. I can only say that the writer did not check his facts, for this year the London Tourist Board has made special arrangements to co-ordinate efforts in the supply of this type of accommodation, and, even more important, visitors have been able to get information at the point of entry, whether coming by sea or air, about the facilities offered by the London Tourist Board for finding accommodation. Great efforts were made in this connection last year and the position this year has been improved and we shall continue to endeavour to improve it. This has been the result of an improvement in the information services sponsored by the English Tourist Board, and it is very conscious of that.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the registration and classification of


hotels. We are familiar with this problem, and I commend especially the hard work of the English Tourist Board in this respect. Its proposals raise a number of issues which I hope to discuss with it and other boards, the BTA and organisations representing suppliers and users of tourist accommodation, and I hope that those discussions will take place in the not too distant future.
Reference has been made to the future growth of tourism and what could happen if the number of visitors to the country increased in the next 10 years as rapidly as since 1961. The problems are certainly formidable, but I have no doubt that they can be and are being solved. People enjoy more and longer holidays, and tourists everywhere are prepared to spend at least a part of their holiday entitlement outside the peak summer months.
A great deal of our promotional effort has been directed to this end and with increasing success. Some 50,000 new hotel bedrooms will have been provided by 31st March, 1973, outside the Greater London area under the hotel development incentive scheme. Page 46 of the report of the English Tourist Board for 1971–72, which has just been laid before the House, shows the tremendous spread of the new accommodation now coming on the market in England alone. The Hotel and Catering Economic Development Council is studying the future needs for hotel accommodation, and we hope that it will make its report later in the year and that its results will help to deal with future accommodation.
The Government's policy of assisting the development of tourism in the regions will also make a major contribution to assisting spreading visitors more evenly and so avoiding problems of overcrowding; which must be a major theme for both the Government and tourist boards. Increased promotion and the supply of new accommodation in the regions will attract tourists to the regions, including many of the old resort areas, and this will bring much needed income to some of our less prosperous areas and is, therefore, consistent with the Government's regional policy.
It takes time to develop the tourism infra-structure over a wide area of the country. It takes time to develop the marketing techniques essential to a

properly planned development. But we are making progress and there is already evidence of a better spread of visitors in both time and place. The BTA estimates that there has been a noticeable drop in the proportion of visitors who visit London only. It is now thought to be about a third of all overseas visitors. There is encouraging information from the English Tourist Board about average bed occupancies in May of this year, now 61 per cent. as against 57 per cent. last year, to some extent an indication of the increase in off-peak holidaying by the public.
Let us not forget that London plays a key rôle as a springboard to all parts of the country. London is a tourist centre inextricably linked with the promotion of tourism throughout the country, as it is also an entry point to other parts of the country. It may be said to be a bottleneck, but one does not help the liquid to fill the bottle by putting a cork in the bottle, and I have heard that suggested.
I do not for a moment underestimate the difficulties of local populations and the environmental problems that arise when too many people converge on a limited area, and the national tourist boards are conscious of the need to preserve the environment and the way of life of local populations, which, after all, are what make the country worth visiting, and regional boards, through their membership, will also ensure that the interests of those who live in the tourist areas will be taken into account at every stage, not only in London but in other parts of the country.
We must recognise that the problems we are facing are the problems of success and not of failure. Although its contribution to the balance of payments is undoubtedly important, there is far more to tourism than that. As the right hon. Gentleman said so eloquently, it contributes to understanding between nations and peoples. I agree that the best advertisement that this country can make and the best encouragement it can offer to tourism is the friendly welcome of the people of Britain. I believe that we are equipped to deal with the problems that arise from what I emphasise to be success and not failure. We can ensure that tourism plays an increasing rôle not only in the economy, in terms of the balance of payments, but, especially


having regard to our pending entry into the European Economic Community, in increasing understanding among nations.

NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES (PUBLIC DIVIDEND CAPITAL)

1.59 p.m.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I begin by expressing my thanks to Mr. Speaker for being good enough to select my subject for one of the Adjournment debates. May I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his presence? The bush telegraph has indicated to me that it is at some inconvenience to himself. I appreciate his presence and I will endeavour to put before him a problem which he will be able to resolve, I am sure, if not immediately, certainly at leisure.
I am referring to the provision of what was originally called Exchequer dividend capital and is now known as public dividend capital as a means of financing nationalised industries. In 1967 the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, under the distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo), embarked on a great inquiry into ministerial control of the nationalised industries which was subsequently published as Commons Paper No. 371 in July, 1968. This is a sort of bible for what had gone on in the nationalised industries until then. The interesting thing is that at that time the issue of Exchequer dividend capital had just been made to BOAC. This was discussed in evidence and the Committee did not find it possible to make up its mind in view of the limited nature of the evidence at its disposal.
I say this because the Treasury put in a memorandum dated February, 1967 and I understand that this memorandum affects Treasury thinking to this day. I have reason to suppose this because a Treasury witness quoted that memorandum to the Select Committee as recently as June of this year. What does the memorandum say? It says:
…BOAC has now been provided with a new capital structure. Part of this takes the normal form of loans from the Consolidated Fund; but about half is Exchequer Dividend Capital on which BOAC will pay

a variable return, like a dividend, to the Exchequer. This will vary from year to year according to the conditions. … The Treasury consider that EDC"—
now known as public dividend capital—
is only suitable for those nationalised industries which are fully viable but which are especially subject to fluctuating returns as a result of their trading conditions, the nature of their assets, etc. It would not be suitable for nationalised industries which have difficulty in breaking even taking one year with another because it would become little more than an interest-free, non-repayable, advance. If the experiment with BOAC proves successful, EDC may be extended in the future to certain other industries.
That was the view of February, 1967, and is, I think, the Treasury view today. But times have changed. The present position is that not only BOAC but the British Steel Corporation enjoys public dividend capital, and further than that, the new British Airways Board which will incorporate BOAC is also to be in receipt of a substantial sum under this heading.
When BOAC was questioned by the Select Committee on this issue of public dividend capital there was the impression created from the replies—I do not want to waste time by going into these in depth, but I refer particularly to questions 654 and 641—that this was very much in its mind as a way of improving staff morale and also particularly—this was brought out in question 641—as a way of measuring its relative performance with other airlines. All of this was highly intelligible.
How far is this appropriate to the British Steel Corporation? The position of that Corporation is very different. At present the Corporation has a public dividend capital of £500 million, having been reduced from £700 million in the last Act, and a long-term indebtedness of £551 million. In the reply an hour ago which caused a certain amount of discussion, the Minister said that there would be an anticipated loss of £70 million in 1972–73 and to meet this he would deal with it in the same way as last year's loss, that is by a reduction in the public dividend capital, that is in the Corporation's indebtedness to the Treasury. He was also to grant a £150 million reduction in the indebtedness to the National Loans Fund in respect of these assets which it had taken over and which had proved to be over-valued at that time.
I cannot quarrel with that in any way, but it seems that in view of this the likelihood of the cyclical nature of the steel industry's profit has yet to be shown. The Chairman of the Corporation said:
When the Government imposed price control by halving the Corporation's proposed increase in April 1971 at a time of steep inflation it was known that a substantial loss was inevitable.
The loss was £68 million, and I am not animadverting to that because we know it has been a difficult time for the steel industry not only in this country but throughout Europe. In this connection I can quote the experience of the Italian Steel Corporation known as Finsider in which the Italian Government have a 51 per cent. interest. It, too, failed to make a profit in 1971–72. This is, therefore, no reflection on the British Steel Corporation, but it calls in question the Treasury's idea that this is a cyclical industry, because my strong suspicion is that the British Steel Corporation will be vulnerable in two directions.
First, we have seen how vulnerable it is to Government pressure through anti-inflationary activity when its necessary price rises are restricted. Secondly, we cannot help but be conscious of the fact that if the Corporation begins to show a profit the social pressures upon it to delay the closure of uneconomic works will become irresistible. It is not in the book, but it is my firm impression that the Corporation will show a profit at its own risk, at the risk of increased public pressure on social grounds. I find it unlikely that the Corporation will be enjoying the cyclical upswing as much as it suffers from the cyclical downswing.
If we turn to the British Airways Board and the £200 million of public dividend capital which the Minister for Aerospace announced a month or so ago, we cannot but link this with the undertaking by BOAC, now part of the board to purchase Concorde. Lord Boyd-Carpenter, whom we all knew so well here as the right hon. Member for Kingston, would, as a business man, be saying to the Government, "You want me to buy Concorde. Well I think you should at least give me my money free of interest until such time as this proves to be a revenue-earning asset."
Reverting to the question of the British Steel Corporation, it seems that, in view of these almost annual reductions in

capital, there must come a time when a profit is earned. I do not think it will be a true profit, but some profit will be earned and it will be wanted for depreciation, which is, in many respects, overdue. Equally, the profitability of the British Airways Board will depend on what subsidy or other form of assistance it can get in connection with its Concorde purchases. The Treasury is unwilling to concede these points. Its witness said:
It is Treasury policy not to make loans in circumstances where one knows one is in fact making a grant".
That is all very well, but I wonder whether it is a realistic statement.
When the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries was reporting—and here I refer to Commons Paper No. 371, page 165—it made a request for a grant of equity capital—by that I mean public dividend capital. It said:
In the Board's view there is a case for a substantial element of the debt to the Government of Nationalised Industries engaged in trading being treated as equity capital. This is particularly so in the case of a business like the railways where costs change only slowly and profitability can vary very substantially from year to year …
It can say that again!
I should have thought that there was a case for British Railways being allowed a grant of public dividend capital. We have just had a short discussion on the proposed third London airport at Maplin. A railway link to it will be essential. This is just the sort of investment which the railways should make and, in my opinion, it would be justified in asking for a grant of public dividend capital for this important extension which would not, in the first instance, be revenue-earning. I should have thought, too, that the British Airports Authority might well ask for public dividend capital in connection with the third London airport. The Authority has always paid its way. It is not on the cards for it to finance the costs of the Maplin development out of the revenues of the airports it controls at present. The same argument could be applied to the Gas Corporation in respect of North Sea gas.
The nationalised industries, so far from being the fiasco which the Minister for Transport Industries described, are performing an essential public service and they should have encouragement from the


Government and from the country and they should have help in taking risks. That applies particular to British Railways in connection with the new trains which they seek to introduce. Those, too, could be suitably financed by public dividend capital.
I am emboldened to raise these matters because it is time that Treasury thinking on this subject was overhauled. There is a fresh wind blowing through Whitehall, particularly through Great George Street. We are lucky enough to have a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer. A paper was published in April this year on the borrowing by the nationalised industries which was a great deal more liberal than anything about which we have heard. There was a statement in c 314–15 of the Written Answers in HANSARD for 7th August about the introduction of trading funds for areas of what was called "quasi-commercial activity in government". I should have thought that the extended use of public dividend capital would have fitted very well into this framework.
It is time that we had a fresh look at this matter, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and his colleagues are the people to do it. I commend my views to them.

2.16 p.m.

Mr. John Golding: I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) has raised this question. There is need for urgent consideration of the subject of nationalised industry finance.
Over the last two years, if not previously, we have had a most unusual situation. We have had political intervention to keep down pay levels and the levels of charges. At the same time—and this has been inconsistent with keeping down prices—we have had an insistence on the maintenance of target rates of return set by the Treasury. There has also been insistence that the nationalised industries either finance themselves from internal resources or borrow from the Government at high rates of interest. Therefore, we have had this ambivalence on the part of the Government towards the nationalised industries—high interest charges, on the one hand, and interfer-

ence, on the other, together with the setting of targets which are unrealisable because of Government intervention.
The Government's intervention has made it difficult in two ways for the nationalised industries to achieve their targets. If we insist that price levels are kept artificially low, it is obvious that it will be impossible to achieve commercial targets. The Government must realise that if prices are set at an artificially low level, and if there is an element of subsidisation for private industry, they cannot expect industries such as coal, electricity, gas and the Post Office to reach the targets set for them in other circumstances.
A few words must be said about the Government's interference in pay questions. It has led, certainly in the coal mining industry, the railways and the postal service, to a considerable loss of revenue. Industrial disputes in those industries have been fought by the Government, and they have been fought far more bitterly than private employers would have fought them because private employers would have realised, long before the Government realised, the commercial damage which was being done and the damage being done to morale in those industries. One has been faced with a situation where the finances of nationalised industries have been damaged very much indeed by the way in which the Government have followed their pay policy.
In the case of the Post Office, in 1969 to 1970 interest charges were £110·8 million. By 1971–72 they had become £1612 million. This is a very big drain on the finances of the Post Office, but it is not very well known that a substantial amount of the revenue of the Post Office is going to the Treasury in terms of interest charges. When one considers the postal service, it is an absurdity at a time when the Post Office is having to ask for the writing off of possibly a £180 million loss by April, 1972, that interest charges are being increased by £4 million to £23 million, £21 million of which is going directly to the Exchequer. I think it would be a very good thing indeed, particularly from the point of view of staff morale, if it were possible for the nationalised industries not to ask that accumulated losses be wiped off but for a rather more sound political policy to


be followed by the Government, and also public dividend capital.

2.21 p.m.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) who raised the very important question of public dividend capital in the public sector. I will refer to some of his points in the course of what I have to say, and also to the point raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding). My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South is the very distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. I understand that that Committee has been studying the British Steel Corporation and the provision of public dividend capital more generally.
I am very glad to have the chance of stating the Government's attitude to this very important element in the financing of nationalised industries. Before I come to the particular questions which have been asked in this short debate, it would perhaps be helpful if I gave a very brief account of the history and the rationale of the PDC concept as we see it.
My hon. Friend reminded the House that PDC was first used in the case of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and was introduced in the Air Corporations Bill by the previous Government in November, 1965. It was, in fact, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), who was then Minister of Aviation, who explained that PDC, which at that time—I think my hon. Friend is quite right—was called Exchequer dividend capital, was to deal with the problem which confronted those nationalised industries which, although basically profitable, nevertheless had to endure fluctuating results because of the cyclical nature of their business or for other similar reasons. If one were to finance those industries solely by the provision of loan capital, that would be a heavy burden on the industries which would have to pay fixed interest charges, and in a downswing period they would land themselves with deficits. This would be undesirable because they would have to borrow to

pay the interest, and that would be very bad for managerial morale.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford therefore explained that BOAC was specially suitable for PDC financing, and he gave four reasons—first, the fact that the airline business is of its nature fluctuating; secondly, that the main competitors of BOAC had themselves a substantial proportion of equity capital; thirdly, that it was an industry with few domestic social obligations; and fourthly, that it was operating in an atmosphere of strong international competition.
My right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary, speaking from that Dispatch Box as Opposition spokesman on aviation, welcomed the proposal which was made as
a sensible and valuable arrangement for BOAC, an experiment which … we may well find to be applicable to other Government finance corporations".
He went on:
I hope that this is an experiment which will prove successful and will be carried through."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd November, 1965; Vol 721, c. 51.]
Experience has shown that the BOAC experiment has indeed been reasonably successful. As the House knows—and my hon. Friend reminded us—the Corporation, in common with other airlines, has been going through a bad patch during the last year or two. Nevertheless, it is a fact that dividends on its PDC compare favourably with what the interest would have been if, instead of PDC, the capital had been in the form of National Loan Fund loans. In fact, up to 1970–71 it would have been true even if there had not been a reconstruction of the Corporation's capital in 1965. BOAC's PDC has been taken over by the British Airways Board and, as my hon. Friend indicated, more is to be issued. I shall come to that in a moment.
I turn to the British Steel Corporation, which is so far the only other nationalised industry to have had Public Dividend Capital. Under the Iron and Steel Act, 1969, some £700 million of the Corporation's commencing capital debt of £834 million was converted to PDC. At the time, the Corporation argued that this was desirable, firstly because in comparison with equivalent manufacturing enterprises, both in this country and


abroad, this would be appropriate; and secondly, because the steel industry fell squarely within the description of industries which are basically profitable but which undergo cyclical fluctuations. The Government agreed with this argument, and Parliament accepted it. This was the classic argument for public dividend capital. Accordingly, the 1969 legislation made provision.
What I would say to my hon. Friend is that it in no way detracts from the validity of the argument that, in the case of the British Steel Corporation, the results, for reasons which I think are well known, have been much worse than expected and that, in consequence of the capital reconstruction made this year, part of the public dividend capital was written off.
My hon. Friend went on to argue that the British Steel Corporation should not be regarded as being a cyclical business, and he advanced two arguments, the first being that its prices were bound to come under Government pressure. I would remind him that under the rules of the Coal and Steel Community, to which we shall be a subscriber next January, the opportunities for the Government to influence the pricing policy of the Corporation will be very severely curtailed. As for the argument that social pressures would in any event preclude the Corporation from making a profit in a good year in that it would not be allowed closure of uneconomic plant, only time will tell. My hon. Friend's fears may be justified. But I submit that it would be wrong to plan on the footing that the Steel Corporation has to endure losses in its bad years but must not be allowed to make up those losses and earn reasonable profits in the good years. On the whole I believe that, in spite of what he said, the arguments I have been adducing on the general question so far are widely accepted by those who follow these matters.
There are, however, two lines of comment which have been made. One has not been put in this debate, and therefore I shall deal with it very briefly. It is that PDC is a soft option and that it is a way in which the Government can finance nationalised industries in a form which does not require regular servicing. I

would argue that it is certainly not a soft option and should not be allowed to become a soft option. It should not be used to finance industries which cannot service their capital. It would be more honest, and it is the normal practice, to pay grants in those circumstances, and this is the way in which Parliament in the past has felt it right to deal with this problem.
Obvious examples are British Rail—the Minister for Transport Industries on 27th July last announced financial support for the railways to meet the situation following the strike and wage settlement—and the National Coal Board, which is facing similar circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry made an announcement last March about grant-aiding the National Coal Board. In these and similar cases it would be wrong to finance the losses by PDC. There would be no prospect of profitability. The losses are not due to cyclical fluctuations but to long-term considerations, and there is little or no prospect of dividends in later years.
It is right to point out that PDC can in no sense be an alternative to realistic and demanding financial targets, if the Government continue to set targets for these industries. Only today my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry in a Written Answer announced a new target for the British Steel Corporation. Therefore, in answer to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, I maintain firmly that PDC should not be taken as a soft option, simply as a means of putting interest-free capital into the hands of nationalised industries.
The argument advanced by my hon. Friend, and to some extent by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, was in the contrary direction, that PDC could with advantage be extended much more widely to meet those cases where paying interest on loans would impose a severe burden on the industry. On this view, so the argument goes, the Government are wrong in insisting that only industries with cyclical businesses are suitable for PDC. My hon. Friend suggested the financing of the high-speed rail link to Maplin, the British Airways Board, and the prospecting for North Sea gas by the Gas Council. I see some difficulties in these suggestions. Take, for instance,


British Rail; unless one thought that the enterprise as a whole was basically profitable and that the only reason for its difficulties arose out of the short-term financing of new development, I do not see how it could be a case for PDC. We are awaiting the study on British Rail which we expect to have in the autumn, but British Rail seems to be in a serious long-term financial situation.
The gas industry is a public utility. Although its results differ from year to year, it is not a cyclical industry in the same way as are the airways. The Government certainly do not rule out the extension of PDC to industries other than steel and the British Airways Board. On the lines already indicated a case will always be considered. It is right to proceed cautiously. Our experience so far is limited.
My hon. Friend referred to Concorde and to the statement of 25th May by my hon. Friend the Minister for Aerospace announcing that BOAC is buying five Concordes and that the British Airways Board will have up to £200 million of new PDC over the next few years. My hon. Friend stressed—and I repeat—that this is in no sense a subsidy for operating Concorde. I have already pointed out that the BOAC experience with public dividend capital has been successful and that the dividends it has declared over the years compare favourably with what would have been paid had BOAC been paying loan interest.
My hon. Friend in his announcement of 25th May explained that the grounds for giving more PDC to the British Airways Board were to bring the debt-equity ratio for the Board as a whole to about the level which the Government thought right for BOAC alone. This reflects the fact that the Board as a whole is influenced by the factors which led to the introduction of PDC for British Overseas Airways.
British European Airways has in the past argued that it, too, should have public dividend capital, and the Government are taking the opportunity presented by the formation of the BAB to achieve the right overall ratio for the BAB as a whole. We are confident that the BAB will pay dividends which depend on its overall profitability and prospects for each year.
I hope that my hon. Friend feels that I have answered the questions which he

put to me and that I have made the Government's position clear. As I said, we certainly do not rule out the extension of public dividend capital to industries other than those to which it has already been issued. As I said at the outset, this subject is under consideration by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, and my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South, as Chairman of that Committee, is perhaps better placed than any of us to know the line of thinking which the Committee is developing. The Government look forward with great interest to reading the results of the Committee's deliberations when they are published, not least those on this interesting and important question of public dividend capital.

GIPSIES (CARAVAN SITES)

2.35 p.m.

Mr. Michael Meacher: The issue I wish to raise concerns the crisis in community relations which many of us feel may be brought about by the Government's decision to accept designation orders under Section 10 of the Caravan Sites Act, 1968. The Act revolves round Section 6, which requires local authorities to provide sites for gipsies residing in or resorting to their areas, although county boroughs and London boroughs are required to provide up to 15 caravan pitches only. Where, however, the Minister believes either that enough pitches and sites have been provided or that it is not practicable to provide them, he may issue an order prohibiting unauthorised camping by gipsies in that area and sanctioning their forcible removal by the local authority.
It is the decision of the Minister to implement Section 10 at this stage which is in danger of provoking a major wave of discrimination, greater even perhaps than that which preceded the Caravan Sites Act, 1968. Right from the start there has been criticism of the powers of discrimination. One complaint is that power is given to a magistrate to make an order against a gipsy without notice and without the gipsy having the right to be heard in his own defence. The main objection has always been that gipsies can be expelled once sites have been provided to the satisfaction of the Minister.
The reason why this is so serious is that the powers are being brought into use when only one-fifth of the total number of pitches required has so far been provided. There are today between 20,000 and 25,000 gipsies in England and Wales, yet the information that I obtained only two days ago from the Department is that there are only 49 sites with about 700 pitches available.
The 1965 survey, from which all our information comes, which the Government published under the title "Gipsies and Other Travellers" found that there were 3,356 gipsy families in England and Wales, although this was widely regarded as an under-estimate, and the total number is thought to be increasing each year by about 1,000. Today there are probably about 3,500 gipsy families in England and Wales, but local authorities have not even proposed to establish sites and pitches to accommodate them, let alone actually provide them, or anywhere near the number required.
At the time of the October, 1970, survey, local authorities promised to provide 2,330 sites, which is still only two-thirds of the total needed, but they have actually provided less than one-third of those promised.
The extent of the provision in relation to the need varies markedly in different areas. Of the eight county council areas which, according to the 1965 survey, had more than 100 gipsy families residing in them, only one—Buckinghamshire—proposes to provide a greater number of pitches than the number of families found to be residing there.
At the other extreme is the county of Kent, where according to the survey—and this is certainly an underestimate—there are over 300 gipsy families, and yet it is proposed to provide only 108 pitches. In exactly the same way Cornwall, Essex, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Surrey and Worcestershire, all of which have substantial numbers of gipsies in their areas, are clearly under-providers of the necessary number of sites and pitches.
The consequence is that in areas where local authorities have applied for designation orders, like Havering, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich and Manchester, there are known to be considerably more

gipsy caravans than there are pitches available.
The reason why designation at this stage is undesirable and dangerous is that it can enable a number of local authorities to foreclose on their responsibilities well below the level of need that remains to be met.
There is another cause for disquiet about the use of designation as now proposed. There is evidence that it is being used for purposes for which the Government in 1968 when the Caravan Sites Act was passed said it was not intended. At that time Mr. Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, the author of the Bill, was assured that the Government would not designate an area until they were quite sure that enough gipsy caravans had been provided in the region.
Circular 38/70 indicates an entirely different outlook, and this is the core of the matter. It says:
Ministers intend to exercise their powers to designate areas under Section 12 in such a way as to avoid creating a patchwork pattern of relatively small areas where it would be an offence for a gipsy to camp.
Despite the pious wording of that circular, that is the precise danger for which we are now heading. The circular continues:
Nevertheless, it may prove justifiable in the case of county boroughs, which have been under pressure and have provided 15 pitches, to make designation orders in advance of the adjoining counties being designated.
This puts an entirely different complexion on the use of the power of designation. Since it is now apparently Government policy to designate urban areas before the county areas adjoining them have been obliged to absorb surplus gipsies from these boroughs, the result can only be the forced migration of gipsies and the perpetuation of their persecution.
Moreover, it is clear both from the Act and from the discussions which took place at the time that the main purpose behind designation was to retain a reserve power to oblige gipsies to move on to an approved site if there were free places available. But the use of powers of designation as now proposed, which will legally permit the export of unwanted members of society to other areas under a sort of latter-day parish settlement law, will have the effect of strengthening, because of enforcement, discrimination against gipsies above the quota. As gipsies


are forcibly moved on from urban areas to county council areas, there can be little doubt that restrictive designation now proposed will generate overspill resentment between local authorities and will stigmatise gipsies as the victims of a modern game of municipal shuttlecock—recalling the use of laws in the last two centuries against beggars and vagabonds who were subject to similar treatment.
A third implicit danger where there is evidence that it is materialising concerns harassment arising from the possibility of gaining a grant of exemption under the Act. Clearly local authorities have an incentive to get rid of their gipsies by one means or another to obtain exemption by claiming that they have no gipsies in their neighbourhood.
In May this year the Gipsy Council reported that harassment of this kind was being intensified in many areas. In the last two years evictions have been carried out in Wigan, Bury, Ashton, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and Cannock, and are undoubtedly still occuring. Only last week it was reported from Cardiff that 250 men, women and children were forcibly moved on from an area which for several generations had enjoyed the status of commonage. This is no new experience for gipsies.
But what is particularly disturbing about the present situation is that even in areas where better than average efforts have been made to provide requisite sites, as in Buckinghamshire, the police are still using powers and other levers open to them under the law to move gipsies on. The legislation which can be used, and which is being used, to harass gipsies makes a formidable list. It includes such choice items as the Scrap Metal Dealers Act, 1964; the Caravan Sites (Control and Development) Act, 1960; the Highways Act, 1959; the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947; and the Public Health Act, 1936. There are also a number of local Acts such as the West Yorkshire (General Powers) Act, 1951, and even bylaws under the Municipal Corporation Act, 1882.
There can be few minorities against whom such a wide range of powers has been so regularly applied. The time surely has come to end this unnatural harassment—this insidious yet pervasive action by the authorities which is undermining a whole way of life.
This was the central purpose of the Caravan Sites Act, 1968. That is has not turned out in that way surely is a matter for real concern, and careful examination is necessary to see what has gone wrong and what further action needs to be taken.
In 1967, the report of the Government of the day, "Gipsies and Other Travellers", which is a very good and authoritative report, laid down the fundamental principle unambiguously and clearly. It said:
Until a wide network of special sites is provided, there should be an end to the present system of perpetually moving the travellers from one unlawful stopping place to another.
It was precisely this situation that the Caravan Sites Act, 1968, was designed to stop, and precisely this prospect which I believe the grossly premature decision of the Government to accept designation orders is likely to open up again.
My fourth major criticism of the way the Act is being implemented concerns the standard of facilities on the sites which have been provided. I refer to facilities for washing, sewage, scrap metal dealing, fire prevention, refuse collection, play space and other essentials which often do not come up to the model standards laid down by the Joint Working Party of Local Authority Associations and the Gipsy Council. Sites are often placed near rubbish tips, canals or sewage beds. Children are often unable to gain access to local schools. Local authorities all too often have failed to liase adequately with the Gipsy Council as they are required to do.
Furthermore, contrary to the general impression, the rents which gipsies are charged are anything but generous. They have been charged up to £3 per week for a single hard standing. I quote one instance reported to me yesterday by Mr. Tom O'Docherty and Mr. George Marriott of the Gipsy Council. It concerns the Cottony Spring site at Leeds 12. This site was made available a few days ago. Some seven families moved on to it and they found that no electricity was available, there was no working area, no storage space, the road surface was bad and crumbling. A rent of £3·50 per week was charged per pitch, which is well above the ceiling laid down of £2·50 per week recommended by the joint working


party. I need hardly add that the families rapidly came to the decision that persecution and the highways, if need be, were better than this mud desert. They quickly left. The moral of the story is that at present there are no powers in the hands of the Minister to enforce higher standards of facilities on sites. This surely is a gross omission.
My fifth criticism concerns another omission. It is the lack of any time limit for local authorities to fulfil their responsibility under the Act. All that has happened is that in a departmental circular local authorities have been asked yet again to give details of the provision of sites that they have made already and the provision which they intend to make in the future. A very similar survey was carried out previously by the Ministry in May, 1970. In the meantime the number of sites has increased from 30 to 49, which, judged against the magnitude of the need, is a pretty dismal failure. At present there is no power to prevent a local authority postponing almost indefinitely its implementation of the Act. Surely this is intolerable.
Finally, a problem has arisen because of the change in some local boundaries under the local Government Bill to which, as yet, the Government have given no satisfactory reply. There is now the anomaly that a county borough designated under the Caravan Sites Act may disappear—

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you give some guidance on this? If the hon. Gentleman encroaches on legislation which at the moment is being discussed in another place, I am put in some difficulty in answering his points.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I understand the right hon. Gentleman's question, and I must tell the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) that in an Adjournment debate one must not discuss legislation which is pending or ask for legislation. If the hon. Gentleman omits that part of his speech, he will be quite in order.

Mr. Meacher: Do I understand that I am permitted to ask for legislation?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No.

Mr. Meacher: Then I shall have to leave that point. However, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows to what I am referring. I hope that account will be taken of the Amendments to it which have been proposed, even though the legislation is being considered in another place.
I end by asking the Government to give much more definite assurances in a number of respects about the future implementation of the Act. The first point that I make is that I regard is as essential that no more applications for designation orders should be accepted by the Government, especially concerning urban areas, until there is clear evidence that county areas have absorbed from the boroughs surplus gipsies who otherwise are in danger of being forced into perpetual mobility and subjected to intensified harassment.
Secondly, I ask the Government to do more to assist financially local authorities which have a large number of gipsies in their areas. This is not a responsibility which should lie entirely on local ratepayers. In the debate in another place on 6th June the Government agreed to consider applications for better allocations from local authorities which intended to provide sites for gipsy caravans this year but were unable to do so from within their normal allocation because of other commitments. That is all very well, but it adds not a penny to local finance. At the very least the Government ought to provide the same subsidy per pitch on an approved site as that given in housing aid to council tenants and owner-occupiers, which at present runs at between £40 and £70 a year. But it is preferable to aim at the target of the Dutch aid programme, which consists of the provision from the central Exchequer of £400 per caravan provided by the local authority plus 50 per cent. of the subsequent running costs.
Above all, the Government should stop the nonsense through the audit system whereby some local authorities spend almost more on evictions and barricades than would be required to provide proper sites. One of the worst instances is Walsall, which was reported recently to have spent £1,600 on evictions in 16 days and an estimated total of £8,000 in its anti-gipsy campaign. One wonders how


many proper pitches could have been provided for that money without all the necessary antagonism that it provoked.

Mr. J. R. Kinsey: Why should local authorities have to contain in their areas nomadic people who do very nicely out of scrap collecting, befoul the areas on which they camp, and then expect to be paid for by the community?

Mr. Meacher: Despite the impressions often put about, they are no better off as a result of subsidies than any other groups. The average cost of a council house is £5,000. At present travellers get less per caravan in subsidy than the tenants of local authorities, let alone owner-occupiers when one takes into account the tax relief on mortgage interest.
The point is that local ratepayers, simply because they happen to be in an area where there are a lot of gipsies, should not be expected to meet the full cost. It is a national responsibility. Someone has to provide decent facilities and ensure that gipsies are obliged to move to them. That is the spirit of the Caravan Sites Act.
Surely the Government should have powers to ensure better standards on sites which have already been provided and should do so as part of a wider programme to ensure that the Act is implemented by all local authorities within a stated and reasonable time scale, which I take to be two to three years. Such a programme should also ensure that a small number of temporary pitches are provided for overnight accommodation for gipsies in transit. That is a clear requirement, and I am glad to see that Bedfordshire has agreed in principle to do this. Lastly, following the good example of Hertfordshire, social workers and teachers especially should be attached to all sites to ensure much better integration with local communities.
If we believe in a civilised and humane society, these are the minimum conditions to be applied to what is still the largest and most discriminated against minority in Britain. I hope very much that the Minister will treat these points constructively, which certainly is the manner in which they have been raised.

2.58 p.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I thank the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) for drawing our attention in this Adjournment debate and in the series of Questions that he has asked over the past 18 months or so to the provisions being made for gipsies. I welcome his interest. The replies to his Questions have made public details of the sites which have already been provided by individual local authorities. What is more, they have shown his concern, and that the Government share that concern.
In May of this year my Department issued a statement which made it clear that it has always been and continues to be the view of my right hon. Friend that proper facilities for gipsy families should be provided as soon as possible. Advice was given to local authorities about the way in which the Act should operate both when the Act was passed, in a circular of 1968, and when Part II came into operation, in a later circular in April, 1970. All those remain unchanged. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman quoted from one in his speech.
This summer local authorities were asked in Circular 59/72 to provide up-to-date information about actual and proposed accommodation for gipsy caravans in their areas. Therefore, when the hon. Gentleman said that designation was discrimination, he was using an unfortunate phrase considering the efforts being made by many local authorities to comply with the Act.
In considering designation my Department has worked very closely with the Gipsy Council. I am sure the Council knows the difficulties just as well as we and the local authorities do. To talk about perpetuation of the persecution of or discrimination against gipsies is discouraging to those local authorities which have carried out their obligations under the Act and to other local authorities which are trying to do the same.
The hon. Gentleman gave his views on the size of the problem and the efforts of many local authorities to meet it. I hope to have a lot more information on this matter when I have received and analysed replies to Circular 59/72. The replies were asked for by 30th September,


so I am unable to give the House any reliable forecast of the rate of progress and the future plans of local authorities. I hope that when I have received and analysed these replies we shall see an advance on the rate which has been shown so far. However, the results of this inquiry will have to be carefully considered before any fresh initiatives by the Government can be planned. I do not hide the fact that progress in establishing caravan sites for gipsy families has not been as fast as we all hoped when the 1968 Act was passed or, indeed, as many authorities would have wished since then.
As the hon. Gentleman said, when the Act was passed it was estimated, on the basis of a study carried out in 1965 and 1966 by the Sociological Research Section of the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government, that we needed 200 sites to accommodate 3,000 gipsy families. That was the ultimate that would be required, according to that research. That was the first attempt to estimate the size of the gipsy population and the need for accommodation for their caravans. It could have been an under-estimate, quite apart from the natural increase which will have taken place since that research was done. At some suitable stage a further census of gipsies will obviously be desirable, and my Department has that in mind.
I cannot guarantee to ask local authorities to provide accommodation for every family which might choose the gipsy way of life in future. We know that we ought to provide more accommodation for those who are enjoying that life at the moment. Therefore, the provision of more sites is of greater importance and priority than counting heads and trying to discover the size of the problem.
After Part II of the Act came into force authorities were asked to provide information about existing sites and what they proposed to do in fulfilling their duties under the Act. The replies we then received, in the autumn of 1970, disclosed that 30 sites were in use and a further 129 were proposed. This represented 433 pitches provided and almost 2,000 proposed. The number has now risen to 49 sites containing 700 pitches.
We are disappointed with the rate, but we must not under-rate the problems and

difficulties of setting aside sites for this purpose. We cannot shut our eyes to the genuine problems with which authorities can be and are faced in seeking to carry out their duties under the Act. In many areas, particularly urbanised areas, suitable land will be difficult to find, whether it has to be appropriated or acquired for the purpose. The difficulties in urban areas are recognised by the limited requirement to provide sites for 15 caravans in both the county and London boroughs. When an authority believes it has identified a suitable location for a site, it often encounters severe resistance from local residents to its proposals.

Mr. Kinsey: Will my right hon. Friend say something in defence of the Walsall Corporation and, indeed, of the West Midlands as a whole, which suffer from this problem? Residents in those areas are strongly against sites that could be used for housing even being considered for use for caravan sites. Also, there is the absolute degradation that the caravan dwellers bring to an area.

Mr. Page: Not if the site is properly set out and equipped. This is what we must sell to the residents and, indeed, to the public in general. Of course there is resentment when it is thought that a site within a residential area is to be used for the sort of settlement which is seen on verges and derelict land. This is not what the Act envisages. The Act envisages a proper site, decently equipped, set aside for that purpose. Gipsies living on properly equipped and managed local authority sites are a different proposition from those on unauthorised encampments. That is a distinction not ordinarily drawn, quite understandably, by residents when they hear that a site is to be laid out in their area.

Sir Gilbert Longden: Has any estimate been made of the total number of these people who will ultimately have to be accommodated? It is very disheartening to a county like Hertfordshire, which is doing its stuff under the Act, that other counties do not and the gipsies simply come pouring into Hertfordshire again.

Mr. Page: Indeed. This is the whole point of the provision for designation. When a county borough has provided a site for 15 caravans, or a county has


provided a sufficient number of sites for those gipsy families who are residing there at that time, it can then ask the Secretary of State for a designation order which will allow it to evict other gipsies. Incidentally, Hertfordshire comes out top of the league in the figures I have here. It has done extraordinarily well in making provision.
This brings me to the point about designation which the hon. Member for Oldham, West mentioned. The hon. Gentleman asked me to give an undertaking that we would not issue any designation orders, because he felt that designation was an authority to evict gipsy families from an area. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think of the whole basis of the Act—that if a local authority makes provision for caravans within its area, it is entitled to ask the Secretary of State for a designation. But the Secretary of State has to satisfy himself that the sites provided are sufficient and appropriate, and in this we have again worked very closely with the Gipsy Council in examining sites before even considering requests for designation orders.
Up to the present no designations have been made, but it would be grossly unfair to local authorities who have provided good sites which are well equipped with water and sanitary conveniences which are in accordance with the model rules and standards that they should be refused an order to which they are entitled under the Act. We do not want, in issuing orders, to have a situation like a balloon where one squeezes it in at one point and it bulges out at another. Therefore in the West Midlands, where this might happen, we have held back on designation orders to avoid the risk of merely moving caravan dwellers from one place to another. The whole principle of the Act was that that should not be our policy in future and the Government are determined to stick to that principle.
The hon. Member asked whether we could give any financial assistance to authorities to provide sites. I know that one of the recommendations by the joint working party of the local authority associations and the Gipsy Council—contained in its report, which was published at about this time last year—was for a direct subsidy. I cannot accept that advice. It would be wholly inconsistent with the present policy of the Govern-

ment under which we are moving away from specific grants which involve a degree of central Government intervention in decisions which should be matters for the local authorities. We are therefore not prepared to give a specific grant for that expenditure, but it is taken into account in awarding the rate support grant each year.
My right hon. Friend felt that it would be most unfortunate if any local authority felt that it did not get the cash to get on with these sites. We know, of course, that with the locally determined schemes local authorities have to plan out according to a budget, and it may be that some of them felt they were restricted and unable to get on with the work of providing sites. The Secretary of State therefore recently announced that he would be prepared to give sanction to the borrowing of money outside the locally determined schemes if any local authority felt that it was being held up through lack of money in proceeding with the provision of these sites.
No exemptions have been given on the plea that there was no land in the area on which to locate a site. Some 32 applications were made for exemption on the grounds that gipsies did not resort to the area. Of these, 13 exemptions have been given, and if I detained the House by reading out the list of exemptions it would be quite clear that these were areas which did not have a gipsy problem. We have been careful not to give exemptions for areas where there is a problem or where there is a problem even within the county.
I have covered all the points raised by the hon. Member. He concluded by asking certain specific questions. He asked for an undertaking that there would be no further designation orders, and I cannot give him such an undertaking for two reasons. It would be unfair to local authorities who have provided sites for us definitely to say that there will be no designation order for them even though they had done all that they were required to do under the Act. Second, in considering designation orders we have the great help of the Gipsy Council and we consider these issues closely with them. I know of one particular case in which a designation order was sought but when my officials and the Gipsy Council looked at the site, they refused to give it because


the site was not good enuogh. I believe that we can work it in that way, refusing to give designation orders where they are not deserved.
We must leave the question of temporary sites to the local authority concerned to decide. I would not wish to detract from the position of the permanent sites in favour of temporary sites. If the authority can do them both, all well and good. I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising this matter—

Mr. Meacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the request for a definite timescale for the full implementation of the Act by all local authorities and on the enforcement of the model standards recommended by the joint working party?

Mr. Page: On the question of enforcement there is sufficient power for the laying down of the model standards. The model rules which apply to all caravan sites apply to these gipsy sites and we would not wish them to be at a lower standard than those provided for residential and holiday caravan sites. The provisions of the Caravan Act as they stand are sufficient for specific enforcement. The enforcement comes when the local authority asks for a designation order and is refused it because the site is not up to standard.
It would be impossible to lay down a time scale. It is for central government to give such encouragement as it can to the local authorities and not to act as a sort of "big brother" to the local authorities, forcing them to carry out the work. We shall use persuasion and announce what our policy is, and I am sure that in co-operation with the local authorities we can speed up the rate of provision now and eventually reach the point which we anticipated would be the ultimate figure when the Act was passed in 1968.

HOUSING AND LAND PRICES

3.17 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: I must declare a small interest in this subject in that I am an unpaid director of a South of England building company which I joined two or three years ago mainly to find out what goes on. What

happens with this company also happens with many others. We no longer tender as we did for public contracts because inflation now renders profit or loss margins precarious. Our main work has become speculative house building. Houses we sold a year ago at £5,500 now fetch £9,000 and up. This is not out of the ordinary. Crawley new town authority, for example, is now asking £10,000 for houses which fetched £8,000 upwards in April and £6,000 at the end of last year. I calculate that for a young couple a mortgage of £9,000 means £65 a month over 35 years.
So, at least in the South-East, where one-third of the population resides, we now have the £5,000 council house without land and the £10,000 house for sale with land. Many councils which apply the Parker Morris standard find the first of these cannot be built within the Department's yardstick without direct labour. The second, in many places, is losing quality because, alas, inflation pares standards as well as raises costs. Building land at £10,000 an acre and up inevitably pushes down the quality of some houses and attracts bad builders. I am deeply troubled by the number of people who are investing £10,000 in such houses even though they will pay in depreciated currency.
Reverting to the company, it would pay us best not to build houses at all. Between the acquisition of land and building, even without undue delay, the value of much land in South-East England and the West Midlands today is rising by more than the prospective profit on houses. So if we can build houses today it very often pays us not to sell them, and if we have land with planning permission it pays even more handsomely not to build on it. This seems to me to be a recipe for social disaster, and, while fully weighing and giving all credit to the Minister's proposals of last April, I do not take the view that those proposals will go to the root of the trouble.
I come to the conclusion that there are a number of factors. One factor is the amount of land with planning permission now being held but not used. The Standing Conference on London and the South-East Regional Planning puts the figure conservatively at 120,000 houses plus another 200,000 houses on land for which permission could be got.


The second factor is longer-range investment by European and British finance houses in certain farmland. I ask, although it is not strictly relevant to the debate, whether the figures published this week by the Institute of Agricultural Economics at Oxford are anywhere near the mark. If so, the soaring prices of some farmland will eventually distort and grievously damage the pattern of agriculture in the South.
The two factors I mention add to the following absurd paradox. On the one hand, we have genuine builders desperately short of land on which to build and paying ludicrous prices for what they can get and, on the other hand, we have a lot of land with outline and detailed planning permission held by land holders, development companies and some local authorities, and simply by sitting on the land these land holders can, and do, make between 10 and 20 times, and even more, on their original investment. To put it quite bluntly, they are in effect profiteering from prospective house purchasers, many of them young couples. I take the view, and I am sorry to say it, that unless we act to remedy this situation we shall not readily be forgiven for it.
What should the Government do? First, they must get the measure of what we are up against. I am not absolutely confident that they have yet done so. I do not dismiss the April measures, some of them excellent. I think that they will work, but will work slowly and inflation will overtake some of them.
The levies and taxes on land that we have tried since the war have failed. It is true, as the Prime Minister has reminded us, that we have a capital gains tax; but what is the objection to the tried Australian or Canadian progressive tax on land with planning permission which is held but not used? On balance, I prefer the fiscal to the compulsory purchase approach. If local authorities are simply invited by the Minister to weigh in with compulsory purchase orders on this land and pass it on to someone who will use it, ratepayers and taxpayers will pay heavily and some injustice may be done to individuals. I want to see the sort of tax which the State of Victoria has used to control development in the greater Melbourne area, and thereby kept down prices.
Why does not the Minister try a tax of, say, x per cent. on land valued by the district valuer which has had outline planning permission for two years? Then let him double that tax on land which has had detail planning for two years. I am sure that we would be surprised by the consequences of doing just that. I am advised by those who know more about the subject than I do that land prices would probably fall.
Again, though this is subsidiary, I set great store by the £80 million made available to local authorities on assembling land, because this costly public servicing has discouraged some from making land available. I also urge the Minister to take a long, hard look at the building industry—I do not mean the big operators—because, frankly, it is in a mess. It is saddled with an obsolete apprentice system and an acute shortage of skilled workers. It was absolutely right, of course, to make sub-contractors pay tax, but that was done too late in the day and it has inflated costs.
The root of our difficulty is the fact that after the credit squeeze of the late 1960s the building industry simply could not meet the pent-up demand of last year and of this. Some of that was to be expected, but some I attribute to weaknesses in the building industry which we must get right.
Again, I refer the Minister to the remarks of the Standing Conference's Technical Panel last month:
Negotiations among owners, builders, market advisers and financiers, and with public authorities about the provision of public services, can be complex and time-consuming so that some years can pass between initial approval of start and building.
Bluntly, a number of planning authorities need brassing up. They are dilatory and inconsistent. That does not go for all of them, but it certainly goes for some of them. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) were here I am sure he would add "What about money supply?" That is a very relevant question.
I do not expect my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, even with his very wide responsibilities, to find the remedies to the evil consequencs of inflation, which basically is what we are talking about—the rise in retail prices since 1962


of 60 per cent. and, even worse in this context, expectation of continued inflation. That, as has been observed in another place, corrupts and distorts the whole basis of the society in which we live, but I venture to say by way of conclusion that a blunter avowal of some of these difficulties would help, We shall not get, nor shall we deserve to get, the concerted and urgent action we need if we wrap around the real evils too thickly with hopefulness.

3.26 p.m.

Mr. James Hill: Listening to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) it seemed to me that we had gone back to the idea of the speculators' hoarding of land, which is the usual way in which the public blame the Government. Land speculators and land hoarding have been blamed as a major cause of our present shortages. Figures have been mentioned by the Standing Conference on London and South-East Regional Planning which show more permits for house building than have been actually taken up and turned into bricks and mortar.
The report says that a pool of about 150,000 planning permissions for houses remain to be acted on in the South-East, excluding Greater London, but this figure has to be qualified. Existing permissions are often owned by persons who are not in a position to develop. Some are very old, some are intended for council housing, and some of the land may be sterilised or blocked in by other land.
A recent survey by the National House-Builders Registration Council in Hertfordshire showed that of some 700 acres of undeveloped land with outline planning permission in only 237 acres was lack of development deliberate. Nearly 200 acres of this land was in the ownership of local authorities, and the largest single private owner was a golf club. I therefore feel that we must not make too much of this idea of land being hoarded by the speculator.
The amount of land built on in the United Kingdom was only 4·3 per cent. in 1970. We have 9·56 per cent. of green belt and 9·02 per cent. devoted to national parks. The rest, over 70 per cent., has still not been built on, provided as green belt or accounted for by national parks.

The recent boom has been almost entirely supported by the easy credit after several difficult years. Government measures to increase house building for home ownership has added to the problem. By the success of our initiative, we have created the problem—by the inflow of funds into the building societies, the option mortgage scheme, which was made more flexible, the abolition of stamp duty on mortgages, the abolition of the money ceiling on local authority lending, the abolition of the betterment levy and the halving of SET.

Mr. Christopher Tugendhat: I agree with my hon. Friend about the Government's accomplishments in this respect, but is it not extremely disturbing that in Greater London, not an area in which land lacks sewerage or other facilities, the number of planning permissions given has exceeded the number implemented in every year since 1965, with the exception of the first half of 1971, and that in the City of Westminster we have seen twice as many planning permissions given as have been implemented? Would my hon. Friend agree that this is particularly disturbing in the light of the various other considerations he mentioned?

Mr. Hill: The London problem is one all on its own. As I come from an urban constituency, it is a problem for which I should not like to answer.
However, there are now unmistakeable signs that this escalation is being curtailed. House prices have passed their peak, and this must mean a corresponding flattening out in land prices. I prophesy that certainly by the end of the year the acute problem will be over. But the prices will not thaw and melt away. Consequently, what can we do to solve this problem? The chief problem seems to be that town planners have little understanding of the commercial implications of their decisions. Firstly, they try to balance the demand for all kinds of accommodation. This produces distortions in the market. Therefore, it seems that the best way to tackle this problem, instead of just saying, "More land must be released on to the market", is to make sure that more land is released on to the market.
I should like the Department of the Environment to have about six inspectors


of planning who could be sent to county planning authorities to work with the planning departments for a month at a time to obtain confirmation for the Secretary of State that land releases for both commercial and housing needs are being dealt with at a rate in advance of requirements, and that the price of both houses and land held is not supported at a high level due to the county planning officer's drip-feed method of land release.
Another very good idea, in the long term, is the Domesday Book for the South East. This must eventually be an excellent way of identifying land. These Domesday Books should cover every region and should be open to public scrutiny.
Returning to the immediate short term, today I was disappointed at my right hon. Friend's inability at the Dispatch Box to answer Question No. 23, although this is no reflection upon him.
It was a perfectly straightforward request for information on the number of permissions for private dwellings in Bromley in 1969, 1970 and 1971, and the number built. How can a worthwhile exercise on the ability of a planning office be mounted if the Department of the Environment does not have the initial detailed information? It is essential that the Department gets the detailed information.
I feel that there should be a special grant to local authorities which, by their sheer circumstances, are almost afraid to release land for development. They should receive an acreage grant to enable them to deal with all the services and social requirements of an area, such as schools, roads, welfare services, bus services, and so on, which are demanded by a modern society. If an acreage grant were given to the smaller local authorities that might make them more amenable to releasing land ahead of requirements.
My right hon. Friend will receive much advice this afternoon, but I hope that he will keep in mind the two suggestions of an acreage grant and the need for an inspectorate to check on county planning officers.

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: This is a short debate and I shall not enter into all the points of argument which could be more usefully de-

ployed against the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James Hill) if it were a long debate.
We ought to welcome the Minister this afternoon. I have been chasing him for six months trying to get him to come to the House to talk about his proposals on land prices and housing costs. I am indebted to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for initiating the debate.
The Government's record on land and house prices is appalling. In the last 12 months the Opposition have presented proposals of such a concrete nature that they might have dealt with some of the problems arising, and the Minister has been considering them ever since. After the last debate on this subject, his right hon. Friend said that I had made a constructive speech and that he would consider my proposals. But he has not written me one line since then.
The Government have shown a far greater consideration and sympathy for land speculators and profiteers in housing than they have for looking after the interests of ordinary people. To say that the answer is to build more houses, which is what the right hon. Gentleman has been repeating over the last 12 months, is a nonsense. Before the houses are built in the requisite numbers to deal with the situation, the sharks and crooks in land and building will have gone home with the loot anyway. I do not wish to quote examples of profiteering. There are too many such examples, and they have been quoted time and again in the House and in the Press.
But let us not believe for a moment that this problem is restricted to London and the South-East. The Bristol and South-West Building Society issued a report last week relating to the whole of the South-West. The problem applies equally to areas I represent as it does to London and the South-East. I give one example which is illustrative of the point I want to make. I refer to a case in Mitcheldean in my constituency, where a builder, on the basis of land bought years ago, has increased his profits by thousands of £s per house at the expense of the workers of Rank Xerox, by progressive increases in each phase of the development of the site. This is one of the rackets that have been occurring all over the country.
Today land speculators and builders in many instances who have had land banks in their possession for long periods are literally robbing people of thousands of £s, and these people cannot afford to be robbed. If we had anything of a moral society, we would not be talking today in terms of simply finding methods by which we could stop this racket; we would be prosecuting these people for obtaining money under false pretences in the way that they do.
There is only one way to deal with this stituation, and that is to impose the kind of progressive tax to which the right hon. Member for Ashford referred, a tax based upon the number of years, becoming progressively more swingeing from the time at which permission to build was granted by the local authority. I would fix that tax, after two or three years, perhaps, at such a level that land holders would pay an amount in excess of any profits that they made consequent upon apportioning the cost per house on the piece of land and over and above that which they purchased it for.

Sir Gilbert Longden: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Loughlin: No. I want to give an opportunity for other hon. Members to make their speeches. All right, I will give way.

Sir Gilbert Longden: I do not dissent from what the hon. Gentleman says, but how would he prevent the purchaser from paying the tax?

Mr. Loughlin: It is always difficult to stop the purchaser from paying a tax. We must devise ways and means of doing that. I am sorry about this, but I did it only because of the grin on the face of the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse), who assumed that I did not want to give way. The difficulty is that as soon as a tax is imposed the whole of an industry engages in devious ways of avoiding it. The Treasury should have people to ensure that the tax is not avoided. This is the only progressive way. Other countries do it. I would seek to ensure that profiteers would not make any profit in this respect.
Local authorities should have compulsory purchase powers to acquire land where planning permission has not been taken up within a reasonable period so that they can build houses, in conjunction with the building industry, for persons who are active or long resident in the area of the housing authority. In such cases there should be conditions of sale to ensure that no killing will take place as the result of any reduction in price arising from such a policy, so that the local authority would lay down conditions whereby, if there was a reduction in the total cost of the house consequent upon the compulsory purchase of the land, the purchaser would be restricted as to the period in which he could sell the house, or he would sell back to the local authority, as some progressive local authorities are doing at present.
I, like many hon. Members, have seen how speculative builders have been able to get away with murder by the use of discretionary grants from local authorities. It is time that the Minister for Housing and Construction or the Minister for Local Government and Development told local authorities that discretionary grants, although it is desirable to maintain the housing stock, should be used to help people who want to build or improve houses for themselves to live in and not to sell at a speculative price or to have as a second home. Local authorities must be told that their job is to give discretionary grants to people who really want homes and not to those who want to make profits, nor to those who want second homes.
Finally, to some extent I agree that the planning procedures should be examined. I am sick and tired of the Gloucestershire planning authority refusing planning permission for people who have a little land in their own area which has been in the family for a long time and who want to build a house for members of their family on that piece of land but whose application is turned down by the local planning authority and by the county planning authority only for it to be found later that the area is developed by a speculative builder who has been granted planning permission.
One of the consequences of the present policies followed by many planning authorities is that they are destroying


villages and communities and are trying to apply urban planning principles to rural development. It is time that the Government faced this situation and told planning authorities that, given certain safeguards, a man who has a piece of land of his own and wishes to develop it and build a house of his own should not be refused planning permission and exposed to the activities of speculative builders, as is happening in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.
The Minister has a responsibility in this matter, because it is not something that can be resolved in the sweet by and by. People are trying to get houses and they are fastening albatrosses round their necks for 25 to 30 years because of the Government's neglect to stop speculative builders from making these killings.

3.46 p.m.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has done a service by raising a matter which can justifiably be described as of national concern, although there are wide sections of the population which are not directly affected. The rented section is not directly affected, though it might be indirectly affected if building costs were to rise too fast. Owner-occupiers are not adversely affected except in the purely economic sense of having the satisfaction of seeing an important capital asset appreciate considerably in value.
The problem to which my right hon. Friend has drawn attention is a very real problem for young married couples, for those on lower incomes who aspire to own their own homes, and for the parents of both categories. Homes are inevitably, naturally and rightly an emotional subject. So is the thought of profiteering in the matter of homes.
If light is to be thrown on this problem, we must look at it dispassionately, almost clinically. The first question to be asked is: how much have house prices risen in comparison with earnings and other prices? An interesting article which appeared in the Financial Times the other day showed that over the period since devaluation in 1967 there has been for much of the country—for the North and even for the Midlands—a close correla-

tion between the rate of increase in house prices and rising earnings. Although this is true of much of the country, it is manifestly not true of the South and the South-East, where the increase is much more marked and much more dramatic, and where one-third of the population live.
The next question is: what has caused this increase? On the one side, there is the increase in money available for purchasing in real wages and salaries. There is the increased availability of credit and the underlying trend, possibly stimulated by the return to office of the Conservative Government but it has been true all along, from tenanted occupation to home ownership.
The one great change which has taken place since 1970 is that hundreds of thousands of people who never dared to think that home ownership would be within their reach now want their own homes and have the means to buy them. Unless we understand this deep social change we shall not understand or be able to grapple with the problem. It is not a case of people who always expected to buy a house being shut out of the market by rising prices. It is a case of many more people who never thought of buying their own homes now banging on the market door and bidding up the price.
In so putting the matter I am presenting it as an economic problem, for that is what it is in part. It is also a social and human problem. It is about people who want to buy homes.
It would be quite attractive to Ministers to go about the country saying "We have stabilised home prices". But it would not help people to get homes. Of course, the better-off people will always be able to afford the deposit and the repayment even if we run into another mortgage famine. But the people whom we are trying to help, whom both sides of the House are concerned about, are the young married couples buying a home for the first time, the lower-paid people who want to become home owners and those who want to move to a better house than the one they have today. These are the people whom we want to help. If we were to ration mortgage finance we would be excluding precisely these people from any chance of getting their own homes.
The alternative approach, the alternative to cutting off demand, is to increase supply until it catches up with effective demand. This is the yardstick by which I hope the House will judge the Government's performance. We have tried to do two things—to ensure that the potential buyers have the necessary finance to buy, and to give confidence to the builders and those who produce the raw materials to get on with the job of building.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: rose

Mr. Amery: I am sorry; I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I rose to speak later than I had expected.
It is a question of giving confidence to builders and those who supply them with their essential raw materials. A basic raw material of building is land. My right hon. Friend was completely right to devote as much of his speech as he did to the subject of land. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) talked about hoarding land. I doubt whether there is a great deal of serviced land hoarded at present. Prices are very high—I would think probably near the top—and I would think that very few people are holding on to land in the expectation of a greater increase in price. The problem is not so much about land being hoarded and how to get it into circulation. The problem is to look ahead and make sure that in two or three years from now builders can look at least that far ahead and be sure that developers and local authorities can make sure that land is available to them.
I should like to join with my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Local Government and Development for what they have done—it has been of critical help to me—in making more land available. As the House knows, we are making £80 million available to local authorities mainly for the assembling of land for private home development. We are asking local authorities, particularly those in the pressure areas, to compile "Domesday Books" of suitable land which could be made available within the next five years. We are giving loan sanction for sewerage works connected with land assembly schemes in advance of

need. The new towns will make a major contribution of 5,000 acres by 1975.
I can make one new announcement this afternoon. Local authorities will be allowed to use part of the £80 million of additional loan sanction to cover expenditure on infrastructure on sites acquired under the loan sanction itself.
There has been a good deal of anxiety expressed by my right hon. Friend and others about planning appeals. I dare say that the machinery does work too slowly, but we are increasing the number of inspectors from 143 to 200, and the processing of appeals has already been speeded up. I have encouraged developers to put in appeals if they are not satisfied with the answers that they have been getting. For the first six months of 1970 there were 2,267 appeals received by the central Government relating to the South-East. For the first six months of this year the number was 3,479, and that shows progress. [Laughter.] I think it shows very considerable progress. These are appeals received for decision by the Secretary of State.
The most acute land problem concerns London, but, as the Under-Secretary announced this morning, the reports of the London Housing Action Group, on which both parties are represented, which were issued today—they are in the Library—give grounds for some confidence that the overall shortage in London can be overcome within the 1970s.
My right hon. Friend has asked us to look at a land tax on the Canadian and Australian model. He expounded the idea in an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph some time ago. We have studied this and similar suggestions in the Department. There are advantages in my right hon. Friend's proposal, but he will be the first to recognise that there are also difficulties. There are advantages in the sense that if there is a tax on land already zoned for housing it will ensure that it is developed. On the other hand, there is the danger that it might stop people applying for permission until they are absolutely sure that they are going ahead and they might get the obverse side of the medal. On the whole, at this stage we have concluded that the way ahead lies rather in co-operation with other interested bodies. That is why we


have been discussing land availability with house builders, land owners and local authorities and have tried to get the nationalised industries and other Government Departments, with some success, to unload as much land as possible.

Mr. Reginald Freeson: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that question, may I put this point to him? If he is rejecting the suggestion which has been put to him by his right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), would he consider the point raised this morning at Question Time by his hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) for taking measures to ensure that there is a reasonable return on the cost of land only when it is made available for owners or bought by owners for development for housing purposes?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman misunderstood what I said, I think. I am not rejecting my right hon. Friend's proposal. I merely say that we are considering this and similar proposals which have been put to us, and we propose at this stage to proceed on a voluntary basis through discussions which are taking place and which we believe may have the effect of producing more stable land prices. If we were to succeed in this, my right hon. Friend would he the last to push this suggestion. It is only if the trend were to continue, I imagine, that he would wish to insist upon it.

Mr. Freeson: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. Would the Minister consider the suggestion put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West?

Mr. Amery: I thought I made it clear. We propose at this stage to proceed on a voluntary basis, and not attempt by fiscal or other measures to introduce compulsion.
There are other raw materials apart from land. There are bricks. I think the brick industry is bringing into production sufficient new kilns to meet the demand of the industry.
There is also the vital problem of labour. The industry has shown a great increase in productivity, but there is a great shortage of skills, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and I have been co-operating closely to see whether we could establish

a better understanding between industry and the employment service, and to see whether we could improve training facilities. We welcome the decision of the National Joint Council to reduce the number of training years for trainees from four to three.
I come now to the crux of the problem: what is being done to increase not just the supply of raw materials but the overall supply of houses? My right hon. Friend said that the company with which he was associated was no longer interested in the public sector. I hope that it will revise its view about that. In the past, local authorities have sometimes been inhibited from building by the cost implications. Under the Housing Finance Act, the Government are committed to finance 75 per cent. of any deficit incurred, whatever the cost of building, so there is no longer any financial bar in that sense; house prices no longer represent a bar to local authority building.
Over the last two years, 279,000 public sector houses have been built, and with the new slum clearance subsidy and rising cost subsidy I imagine that this process will accelerate substantially.
The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West referred to improvement grants. I understand his anxiety about speculation, but I am even more concerned that there should still be over 2 million people living in substandard houses, and I am glad to see the dramatic increase in improvement grants. There has been an increase of 112 per cent. in London alone in the first six months of this year over the first six months of 1970, under the Labour Government, and in the North, again taking the last six months of the Labour Government compared with the last six months under this Government, there has been an increase in improvement grants approved of 279 per cent. In fact, the total number of approvals in the last six months was greater than that for the whole of 1969 and 1970.
My right hon. Friend was mainly concerned with private house building, but public sector work and improvements contribute just as much to the load on the building industry and so to the level of prices.
A word now about building in the private sector. In the 12 months to June, 1970, 156,000 private sector houses


were built. There were bankruptcies, there was heavier unemployment, and there was a deeper depression, perhaps, than ever before. We set out to revive demand, as I said, by lifting the ceiling on local authority mortgage advances and by encouraging the building societies to make credit more readily available on easier terms. The results have been that in 1971 207,000 houses were built, compared with 165,000 in 1970, and in the first half of 1972 111,000 were built, which is an annual rate of 220,000. I do not have the official July figures but the National House-Builders Registration Council—builders have to pay it a fee when applying to register a development—records starts of 23,000 houses in July, which represents an annual rate of about 270,000.
One swallow does not make a summer, July is usually an exceptional month, and I am not going in for crystal-gazing; but there are plenty of people well versed in these matters who believe that next year we shall achieve a target of 250,000, and in 1974 as well.
On any estimate, therefore, at least 900,000 houses—and probably more overall—should have been built in the lifetime of this Parliament, assuming that it runs the normal course. To these 900,000 houses must be added those houses converted, either in the public sector or in the private sector, from rented accommodation to owner-occupation.
Council house sales are going at the rate of about 30,000 a year this year, and I think that private sector conversions are considerably more. It could be, therefore, that over the lifetime of this Parlia-

ment between 300,000 and 500,000 houses will have been converted from rented accommodation to owner-occupation.
Thus, in the lifetime of this Parliament well over 1 million families should have become owner-occupiers who were not so before. This is a record. But what is more encouraging to me even than that record total is the breakdown in the figures.
It would have been only natural to expect that, with soaring house prices, young people and people on lower incomes would be priced out of the market. In fact, such figures as we have—I believe them to be reliable—show that the contrary is the case: 22 per cent. of all mortgages in the first quarter of this year, when prices have been rising faster than ever before, went to people 25 years of age or under, and in the same period 24 per cent. of mortgages went to people earning £30 a week or less.
I submit to my right hon. Friend and the House that we have achieved a good deal in these two years. There is much more to be done. Of course there is. We have to increase our efforts, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for stimulating us to do better than we have. We must increase our efforts. So must industry. So must the building societies. But nothing would be worse at this stage, when we are really getting results, than to falter and cut back on the financial arrangements which make it possible for people who want to own their own homes to buy them. Prices will stabilise only when supply meets demand, and we are determined that it shall.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act, 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measures:

1. Appropriation Act, 1972.
2. National Insurance Act, 1972.
3. National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1972.
4. Administration of Justice (Scotland) Act, 1972.
5. Gas Act, 1972.
6. Land Charges Act, 1972.
7. Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1972.
8. Industry Act, 1972.
9. Harbours Development (Scotland) Act, 1972.
10. National Debt Act, 1972.
11. Poisons Act, 1972.
12. Bath Side Bay Development Act, 1972.
13. British Transport Docks Act, 1972.
14. Devon River Authority (General Powers) Act, 1972.
15. Essex River Authority Act, 1972.
16. Greater London Council (General Powers) Act, 1972.
17. Liverpool Corporation Act, 1972.
18. London Transport Act, 1972.
19. Milford Docks Act, 1972.
20. Selnec (Manchester Central Area Railway, &amp;c.) Act, 1972.
21. Thames Barrier and Flood Prevention Act, 1972.
22. Thames Conservancy Act, 1972.
23. Hampshire County Council Act, 1972.
24. Deaconesses and Lay Ministry Measure, 1972.
25. Clergy Pensions (Amendment) Measure, 1972.

BIRCHLEY STEEL MILLS, WARLEY

4.5 p.m.

Mr. Peter Archer: The last minutes of today's sitting are ticking away and there are still a number of hon. Members anxious to speak, and so I hope that the House will forgive me if I deliver this speech at a faster than usual rate of delivery.
This is a matter which affects a modestly sized factory in one area, but it is of great importance to the Black Country because it is an area which has seen its prosperity evaporate over the last few years, until short time and unemployment are spectres breathing down the necks of many families and those who lose their livelihoods face the prospect of long-term unemployment. It is of great importance for the country because it raises issues of responsibility extending far beyond the present instance. In view of the exchange at Prime Minister's Question time yesterday, I should like to say a word about parliamentary responsibility.
The complex is situated in Oldbury, in the area now represented by the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Stokes). It is fair to say that he could not be here today, but, notwithstanding what he said yesterday, he has authorised me to say that he supports what I am saying in this debate, and I have every reason to accept what he says. It is an area that I hope to represent along with Rowley Regis after the next election, and may that be soon.
At the moment, it provides employment for some of my present constituents and for some of the constituents of my hon. Friends the Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards) and the Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert). It is important because it is only part of a threatened series of closures affecting the whole of the Black Country—Cookley in Dudley, Bilston, Wolverhampton, Tube Investments in Walsall and so on.
Birchley employs 227 men but the total at risk in the whole series of closures may he between 3,000 and 4,000. I have called it a complex. It is only a small complex, but it consists of three mills, so that technically it is a complex of a seven-inch, a nine-inch and a 21-inch mill, rolling steel bars and producing approximately 1,000 tons a week, and it is part


of the Special Steels Division of the British Steel Corporation.
Its probable future is seen by the Corporation as having a limited life, with the 21-inch mill closing in the financial year 1973–74, which means that it may be at risk from next April, while the other mills would be in danger in the financial year 1975–76. The reasons as they have been expressed by the Corporation are that this is part of a rationalisation process, a concentration of special steel production in larger units because smaller units are not economically viable.
We know that a large mill at Rotherham is envisaged producing about 8,000 tons a week This was not announced baldly as a sudden sensation. Our complaint is not that the Corporation failed to cushion a sudden blow, but that it piled the cushions so as to conceal what it was doing, until it was burned through, and it was only when events revealed the process that it was discovered that orders were directed elsewhere and employees suspected, perhaps not unnaturally, that the mills were being quietly run down, and the unions involved formed an action committee to discuss the matter with Corporation officials.
On 25th April, Mr. Bromiley, the managing director of the Special Steels Division, wrote to Mr. Pearsall, Chairman of the Action Committee:
I fully understand the apprehension that you and your colleagues are feeling, but I must make is clear that there is no reticence on the part of the corporation to discuss Birchley's future. It is merely that we are not ready. …
The hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen wrote to the Chairman of the Corporation. On 6th April he received an answer which said:
A planning study in depth is now in progress and later in the year we shall be discussing with the Government our alternative strategies and capital investment proposals. Until those discussions are concluded it would not be possible to have any very meaningful exchanges about the future of any particular works…
I wrote to Mr. Bromiley on 15th May and received the following answer:
I think it is very unlikely that I would have anything more to say than that which is contained in Lord Melchett's letter.
Nevertheless, we arranged a meeting for 26th June and before that meeting took

place, on 15th June, a notice was exhibited at the premises saying that these decisions had been reached, that the future of the mill was already limited, and specifying broadly in which financial years that future was likely to terminate. So, we have one more example of what has become perhaps a typical way in which large corporations deal with those people concerned. One day it is too early for discussion and the next day it is too late because the matter has been decided.
To return to the future of Birchley, the Action Committee made it clear that the employees would prefer to remain within the Corporation but they said that if this were to be denied them they would look for a future within private industry. This situation is probably unique, certainly in the Special Steels Division, because we have had here a number of offers from companies anxious to acquire the Birchley mills. We know of at least two private companies who have stated publicly that they would be prepared to make realistic offers the moment negotiations were opened.
Of course they have not put any specific figure on this because until it is agreed precisely what plant, what goodwill, and what proportion of the order books is for sale, they cannot give a specific figure. They are ready to do so and to guarantee that these mills will continue in production until the 1980s. The British Steel Corporation has rejected those offers. It has declined to discuss the possibility of a sale to private industry on the grounds that when the giant mill is in production it will require the order books of mills such as Birchley.
That admits of a number of comments. One was the comment made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that it was rather strange, if small mills are to be jettisoned because they are not competitive, that the Corporation should fear competition from them. A further comment comes from a number of local experts who suspect a fallacy in the reasoning that if local customers cannot obtain their orders from Birchley they will go elsewhere in the Corporation. There are three fallacies. Local customers can be supplied cheaply and quickly at the moment because there are no transport problems. If they have to be supplied from Rotherham there may well be such problems.
Secondly, this is a field in which there are so many variations in size and quality of steel that stockholders are not always capable of meeting a particular requirement. There is a need for what in the industry are called jobbing mills. This is an area of diverse industry—"You name it, we make it". Local customers are likely to ring up at 10 a.m. and say, "We have a small order which we require at once. Can you deliver it by four o'clock this afternoon?" It is mills such as Birchley which can meet that kind of need.
Then there is the matter of cost. I have a report by a working party from within the Corporation. I say at once that this report is confidential and how it has found its way into my hands is a matter which I do not think it would be wise to disclose here. If the Corporation is less than frank about its decisions, it must not be surprised if these documents do change hands. Because it is confidential I do not propose to quote from the contents of the report except on one matter, which I do not believe the Corporation would consider to be confidential, and it is an argument rather than information. What it says is:
A problem mainly, but not entirely, confined to Special Steels Division is that of the difficulties of ensuring an adequate customer service if too large a proportion of the capacity is in high capacity mills which require large batches (100 tons+) … it is necessary to ensure that sufficient capacity is retained in mills which can roll small batches at a cost which allows adequate return.…
On the Corporation's own argument it may find that orders denied to Birchley may be lost to foreign competitors rather than being replaced within the Corporation.
The House may ask whether the fate which threatens Birchley is the conclusion of consistent unprofitability or is the nemesis of unhappy industrial relations. The answer is that it is neither. It has consistently shown a profit and there is no reason why it should not continue to do so. This is not a "lame duck". This duck is laying golden eggs and shows every prospect of continuing to do so.
Nor is there any problem of industrial relations. The management has admitted that it could not have a better work force. So far as I have been able to ascertain, there has never been any form of industrial action, go-slow or industrial

dispute. Recently the light mill had its production interrupted for a time and the whole force, without being asked, went to the heavy mill, got their jackets off and helped. The proposed closure is the employees' reward for loyal and profitable service.
I turn to the question of the impact on the locality. It cannot be often that a situation affecting a works of this size has gone to the heart of a community so completely. All the Members of Parliament in the area have demonstrated their concern, irrespective of party. The Action Committee consists of all the unions concerned. They are watching events here very carefully, and I have a telegram here about today's debate which I would read if time permitted. There has been a campaign by local residents called "Keep Birchley Rolling", and a mammoth petition is in the course of preparation. The president of the campaign is the Mayor of Warley. I have a letter from the town clerk setting out a resolution of support from the local council. Again, I would read it if time permitted. The local Press and the broadcasting and television services have given enormous and unstinted support and, through them, we have even had coverage in the national media.
I come to the point of the debate. I hope that the Minister will tell us the Government's attitude. The overall picture begins with the Government. We know from the Government that the target of steel production in 1980 is between 28 million and 36 million tons. In view of the time I shall not be tempted, as I might otherwise have been, to engage with the Minister in discussing how much pressure was placed by the Government on the Corporation to accept the lower end of the range. The Minister announced on 23rd May—and I accept what he says—that there was a complete understanding between the Government and the Corporation, and it is on that that I rely. In terms of legal pleading, I admit and adopt that argument.
The range of 28 million to 36 million tons is pretty wide. Production of 28 million tons would mean virtually no expansion at all. The industry is already producing 27 million tons a year. Did the Corporation base its calculation on the upper end of the bracket or on the lower end? In


other words, is it calculating for any increase in special steels, or is the mill at Rotherham merely intended to keep production static?
Yesterday, I asked the Prime Minister what was the Government's attitude, and he replied that the Government would not stand in the way of the Corporation selling Birchley to private industry if it wished to do so. We want the Government to go further. They should not be neutral in a matter of this kind. Will they say that an employment situation of this sort is too important to be left to the accountants, even assuming, which we do not accept, that the accountants have their figures right?
The Prime Minister pointed out, quite accurately, that under the Act the Government had no power to give the Corporation directions. He also pointed out, perhaps not surprisingly, that the Act had been introduced by the Labour Government. Some of us felt that in the Act we made too many concessions to opinion from right hon. and hon. Members opposite. Perhaps we shall not make that mistake again. But even accepting that the Minister does not have power to give the Corporation directions, we find it hard to believe that, if the Government have a view, the Corporation would ignore it.
If the Government genuinely wish to go further than merely saying that they will not stand in the Corporation's way, will they indicate that they accept social responsibility for this matter? Or do they simply abdicate all responsibility? If they do, those in the locality may very well conclude that the Government do not care about jobs, and that would surely be a fair inference.

4.19 p.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards: I am very grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) for the fact that, with his usual generosity, he has reduced his speech to the minimum in order to allow some further comments, even if they can be only one or two, in this debate.
Here we are discussing an establishment owned by the people, the kind of establishment which one dreams about.

where there is a completely harmonious relationship throughout the factory. We have not had an industrial dispute there in 30 years. For the last 10 years there the average surplus of each worker has been over 1,000 tons a year. Yet this establishment, profitable, a harmonious unit, serving the local Black Country industry, is threatened with closure. We just cannot understand the logic of this decision.
I have been making some inquiries about what is happening in the steel industry in America and in the steel industry in Germany. I discover from my trade union friends that in those countries they are moving away from the great mass-production steel factories and developing mini-steel factories catering for local demand. They are moving away from the whole concept of mass production in large massive factories towards mini production in the two major steel-producing countries of the world, America and Germany. This development is taking place based upon experience. I hope that we are not going to have to learn this lesson based on our bitter experience by closing down establishments like this.
I have an interest in that not merely do some of the workers live in my constituency but the mill has a close link with the Bilston steel works and the special production of the Bilston steel works—as have other works. For example, the great tube works at Newport, where 1,300 workers are employed, is also threatened with closure. That works uses or has used for many years the special steel produced at the Bilston works. I met a deputation from Newport. The men at Newport tell me that they received from Bilston the best steel in the world for the purpose for which they needed it, and that is, producing tubes for oil drilling—and for those there is an increasing demand today. They used to received 2,000 tons a week from Bilston. This has been reduced to 200 tons a week. Those men know their business because they love the steel industry and they are very wise and knowledgeable about it, and they say that the steel they are getting today, and not coming from Bilston, from the Black Country, is inferior steel, and that they have great difficulty in using the steel which is sent to them instead.
We just do not understand the policy of the British Steel Corporation. We do not accept that the Corporation has complete autonomy to run the business as it likes, when people's jobs are being put in jeopardy in the Black Country, where every day we hear of redundancies and of small factories closing down in the very heart of Britain.
The Black Country, the West Midlands, is the strong arm of Britain. The Industrial Revolution started there. It cradled the iron and steel industry; it cradled coal production; and it cradled great engineering work. The whole area is now threatened, in our opinion, with very serious redundancies, and we believe that one of the contributory factors in that is the policy of the Corporation. Steel is the barometer of British industry and of Britain's future, and that is what troubles us today.
I am sorry for having taken so much time in this short debate, but I hope that we shall get serious answers to the serious problems which confront our people in the Black Country.

4.25 p.m.

The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tom Boardman): I am sorry that time prevents hon. Members who I know wish to take part in the debate from doing so, and that I may not be able to deal as fully as I should like with the arguments put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer). I recognise the concern that there is for the 230 or so men whose jobs at Birchley may be threatened. It is right that these views should be ventilated on the Floor of the House, as they have been by hon. Gentlemen opposite and by my hon. Friends outside the House.
The debate raises a number of interesting and important issues, and it is to these that I should like to turn. There is the entirely different issue as to the nature of the responsibility that nationalised industries have in our society. There is the question whether we have a right to expect the BSC as a publicly-owned enterprise to behave differently in this context from the way in which private sector interests behave.
By implication the debate has focused attention on how far the Government can or should press a nationalised industry to

act contrary to what it considers to be commercially right. There have been many debates in the House on the steel industry which seem to have been based on a misconception—a misunderstanding of the nature of the Government's powers over the British Steel Corporation. In certain ways these are extensive. We appoint the board members, we approve the Corporation's general programme and we control the advances of public money to the Corporation.
These, of course, are broad powers. The whole concept of the nationalisation Statutes is that day-to-day management of the industry should be left to the board. It could not be otherwise. That is not to say that a Minister cannot question the wisdom of a nationalised industry's decision or make inquiries as to the reasons lying behind a managerial decision, but the fact remains that management must take managerial decisions and be responsible for them.
I turn now, against that background, to the points made in the debate. The Corporation has said that it has taken no decisions to close Birchley in whole or in part but that it cannot go on as it is and that its life is limited. I believe that to be a fair summary of the somewhat confusing messages that have come across. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to a BSC confidential document which mentioned certain closure plans and reasons for closure in that part of the country. I have not seen the document and I have read only the comments on it that have appeared in the Press. I understand that the document is 18 months old and that it has been superseded by further studies.
While I repeat that to the best of my knowledge no decision has been taken about Birchley, we all know that rationalisation of the steel industry is absolutely essential if we are to become competitive by international standards. This must take the form in many instances of building new, bigger plants and phasing out older, smaller ones. Rationalisation cannot take the form of freezing the pattern of steel making and fabrication at the same localities for all time. A proper rationalisation was one of the major reasons given by the Labour Party for nationalisation. We must get productivity up and manpower per unit down.
Much of the debate has concentrated on urging the BSC should sell its Birchley plant to private sector interests. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to two companies which were interested. I know of two that have a general interest and there are more which have expressed an interest, but I am not aware of any offer having been made or of any price being discussed. Again, this is not a matter for which I should be responsible. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that it all depends on what part of the order book is included, and I lay stress on that.
In so far as criticism has been made that the British Steel Corporation is taking a dog-in-the-manger attitude in stating that it did not intend to sell the plant—I think that is a fair summary of the criticism made—it is not my job to defend the BSC decision in detail. It is not my job to comment on the facts and figures on which the BSC bases its assessment of the course that it considers to be commercially right. I say "commercial" because we cannot have it both ways. We cannot lay down as a policy objective that the BSC shall attain profitability in 1973–74 and pump vast sums of the taxpayers' money into steel with a view to modernisation and efficiency and, at the same time, try to countermand managerial decisions which undermine those objectives. It would be commercial madness to put vast investment into new plant and then find that there were no orders because the order book had been sold with the written-down assets of the old mills, thus allowing a competitive position to be created where the Corporation were bound to be the losers. I do not believe that in this matter we can expect or indeed demand the corporation to act unlike any other large commercial user.
It is not for me to defend BSC's reluctance to sell the plant. There are, however, reasons which I could put forward why it would be wrong for the Government to intervene. Hon. Members opposite have constantly criticised the Conservative Government for excessive intervention. We have heard today criticisms of the Government's attitude about the Joint Steering Group as a review body. But surely there can be no question of the Government's right to

intervene as bankers and approvers of the industry's investment plans.
Then, somewhat inconsistently with the other view, the hon. and learned Gentleman presses us to intervene when it is clear that it is the BSC's managerial responsibility which is involved. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that Birchley is too important to be left to the accountants, yet he said that the decisions should be made by the Joint Steering Group. The implication of his remarks appeared to be that future strategy would be best left to the accountants. I find that I am unable to go along with him. These are managerial decisions and hon. Members opposite must be careful in how far they expect management decisions to be moved from the Corporation—a corporation which was set up under Labour legislation to take these very decisions—and back to the Floor of the House. I believe that if we tried to run the nationalised industries from the Floor of the House we would find that we were creating an instrument which was difficult to control.
It is quite justifiable that the BSC should be resistant to moves which would imperil the loading on its new expensive plant, built with public money. I understand this attitude, although I neither defend it nor support it. But do we expect the public sector to act differently from the private sector?
It has been said that Birchley is profitable. I have not the information to confirm or deny this, but accepting it as true, it is not the whole of the story. I am asked why there is no information. Because the BSC does not produce detailed management accounts for the consideration and approval of the Government. That requirement is not in the Iron and Steel Act nor is it part of the nationalisation strategy proposed by hon. Members opposite. I have not time now to go into whether it should or should not be part of that strategy.
On the assumption that the information on profits is correct, it is not the whole story. The corporation must look at the effect of the operations as a whole and must concern itself with the comparative profitability of its various options.

Mr. Robert Edwards: Without any social considerations?

Mr. Boardman: The BSC takes into account, as does any other employer, social considerations. It would be most irresponsible for any employer, particularly one as large as the BSC, not to do so.
I must make it clear that the Government's rôle is critically important. We must accept Government responsibility for the social consequences of management decisions which may be made. We have never attempted to shirk that. We have brought in measures of regional assistance. There are now more powerful instruments to deal with these problems than has ever been the case before, and we intend to utilise them as and when we think appropriate.
This kind of industrial problem is not new. Hon. Members will remember that a similar situation arose in respect of the textile industry. The need then was recognised on both sides to close down old capacity in the cotton industry under the Cotton Industry Act, 1959. That provided for both the Government and the industry to pay for the scrapping of old plant and for the re-equipment of continuing firms.
I said at the beginning that the Government have no power to compel the British Steel Corporation to sell iron and steel assets. As hon. Members will recognise, this would be contrary to the spirit of the Act which was framed to leave day-to-day management as a matter for Corporation. However, I stress that there is no objection on the part of the Government to the sale of Birchley to a private re-roller. A sale would be in accord with the Government's wish to see the private sector competing with the British Steel Corporation. Thus it is open to any firm to make an offer to the Corporation. But it must be for the Corporation to assess such an offer and to decide whether to accept it. I have given some of the reasons why the Corporation may not want to do so, but the decision must be for the Corporation.
Hon. Members opposite were critical of what they called the hiving-off proposals for the corporation. But obviously they want to hive-off Birchley. Although Birchley did not feature in the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 28th June, when reference was made to such sales, the state-

ment met with considerable opposition from the Labour party. In our debates on the Iron and Steel Act, 1972, when we removed any doubt about whether the corporation was free to make the sale for which both hon. Members now press, hon. Members opposite were opposed again to the proposal. They cannot have it both ways.
We do not have the power of compulsion. But no doubt the British Steel Corporation will consider carefully what has been said today. I accept fully that both hon. Members have a sincere and proper concern, as have the Government, for those who work in the industry. I do not challenge all the tributes paid to them. However, we must define clearly what are the Government's powers, and hon. Members opposite must be consistent in their demands upon the Government. They cannot with one breath say that the Government must intervene and, with another, say that we must stand back and do nothing.

NEW PARLIAMENTARY BUILDING

4.38 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: I regard it as a great privilege to have the opportunity to raise in the last debate before the Summer Recess a matter which is of more than domestic importance to this House. I refer to the new parliamentary building. I do so because, if it is built, it will be sited on what must be considered an important and most historic site.
The House of Commons Services Committee in the Session 1967–68 recommended that a new parliamentary building should be built on the north side of Bridge Street. It was decided in 1970 that an architectural competition should be held to promote a design, the competition to be open to any architect or architectural firm in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. It was proposed that the competition should be in two stages. Nearly 1,000 architects or firms expressed an interest in the first stage of the competition, and 246 of them put in schemes.
The second stage came when some were selected, and those contenders were asked to develop their schemes which had


been submitted in sketch form. Last December it was announced that the assessors had nominated a winner. However, before any announcement was made, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction very properly thought that models should be built of the seven leading schemes and an exhibition staged in Westminster Hall. In March of this year it was announced that in the opinion of the assessors the winners were two young architects named Robin Spence and Robin Webster.
The Services Committee of this Session met to discuss and to meet and question the people concerned with the winning design and others. It reported at the beginning of last month, on 4th July. It said that the House should adopt the winning design with relatively minor modifications and, perhaps even more important, that the construction should be started as soon as possible.
Under questioning, the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons said that there must be a debate before a decision could be taken whether to proceed with the construction of this new parliamentary building. I am disappointed that time has not been found for a full debate before the Summer Recess. I appreciate the difficulties of the legislative programme that the Government have faced and I concede that there was no definite commitment that there would be such a debate before the Summer Recess. I realise that my hon. Friend who is to reply to this short debate is not in a position to give any assurance, but I hope he will communicate with the Leader of the House and try to seek from him an assurance that there will be a debate on this important topic before the end of this Session, which I understand means before the end of October, and that, whatever the Government's attitude may be towards this winning design, the Motion for the debate should be on the proposition that the winning design should be accepted with the modifications and that we should give the go-ahead for the work to proceed.
In the very few minutes available to me I do not intend that this should be a debate on the merits or demerits of the winning design, though, for reasons which I am prepared to explain, I am a strong

supporter of it. I should like to concentrate on the administrative problems and other matters arising from a decision on this new parliamentary building. After all, if the winning design is accepted, as I hope it will be, the detailed designs have to be drawn up, planning permissions have to be sought and given, the existing buildings have to be demolished, and I should think there would have to be further foundation testing, particularly in relation to the four towers of the proposed winning design. The project will then have to go out to tender and building contractors will have to be appointed. All this has to be done before the work can commence.
I should like clarification basically on three points regarding this project. First, I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would confirm that all the land, the subject of the site of this new parliamentary building, is in the ownership of the Government. I have heard rumours, which I hope are not true, that there is a parcel of land that is not yet in the ownership of the Government. I understand that that parcel of land might have a site value of approaching £2 million. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would clarify that point. If not, I hope that very quickly that land will be within the ownership of the Government.
Secondly, it is important that we demolish the existing buildings and that the necessary excavation work preparatory to the sub-structure, let alone the superstructure, of the new building should be undertaken as soon as possible.
I say that for three particular reasons. First, it is of tremendous importance that if the building proceeds it should not be delayed by archaeological finds that may be discovered under the land. One only has to recall the archaeological remains that were, and are being, found when excavation work started on the underground car park in New Palace Yard to realise that it is more likely than not that important discoveries will be made. Therefore, if the excavation work could be done as soon as possible this would be less likely to cause delay in the construction work.
Secondly, although test borings must have been taken on the site, I think there will be a need for more comprehensive test borings, if only in the vicinity of the


foundations of the four towers which are proposed to form the construction basis of the new building.
Thirdly—I am rather surprised about this—I understand that it is not known exactly where the Underground goes under the site of the proposed new building. We know it is there, and we know roughly where it is, and it is critical to the design. Speaking to the architects the other day, I discovered that every six inches counts, and it would therefore be a good thing to find out exactly where this public conveyance of the metropolis runs.
The third point on which I would like clarification is that if there are—I hope there are not—what I can euphemistically describe as conflicts between the Department of the Environment on the one hand and the Greater London Council on the other, I hope these will be resolved speedily. I am thinking particularly about if there is disagreement about the proposed line of the building with Bridge Street, or whether Bridge Street should become a pedestrian way or continue to be for motor vehicles.
I have one final and, I believe, critical point to make about the new building. When the House takes a decision about the building and about the important site on which it is proposed to build it, there should be a simple choice. That choice should be either to have the winning design, with modifications, and to build it as soon as possible, or not to have that design because we do not think there should be a new parliamentary building. I do not suggest there has ever been a commitment upon the Government that they should necessarily accept the winning design. But it would be going against the grain morally if we were to say that another new parlaimentary building should be designed for that site.
After all, there is at least an implicit commitment because the competition was open to any architect in the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth to put forward plans if he thought he could do so, and, therefore, we must accept, as did the assessors, that we have the best design of those submitted. I feel very strongly about this point but I believe we would be reneging on a moral commitment and we would be throwing into the whole cauldron of political discontent and

bring into disrepute the whole principle of international competitions. Two young architects have won this design competition, and I believe they won it convincingly. Surely it is a controversial solution but it has been accepted by the assessors, who said it
Quite clearly came out on top".
It has also now been accepted by the large majority of the members of the Services Committee. I believe it to be a distinguished and distinctive contribution to 20th-century architecture on the Embankment.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Rubbish.

Mr. Chapman: I believe that, rather like Coventry Cathedral, there will be initial public hostility which will turn to acceptance, and when the building is finished it will be the subject of open admiration.

Mr. Cormack: Rubbish.

Mr. Chapman: I say to my hon. Friend, whose views I sometimes agree with, that if one looks back at the great architectural competitions one sees that they have produced the greatest architecture in this country and invariably the architects at that time were unknown people. Take, for example, Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, who was in his 20s when he won the design for the St. George's Hall in Liverpool accepted as one of the greatest neo-classical buildings. Barry was only in his early 40s when with Pugin, then in his 20s or 30s, they designed this august building. Christopher Wren was in his 30s when he designed St. Pauls and Inigo Jones was in his early 40s when he conceived the Banqueting Hall, Whitehall. I say this in support of this House coming out to give a clear lead and inspiration to architects in this country by accepting the winning design.
I speak finally on a personal note. I gather that it is customary that as I have the last Adjournment debate before the Summer Recess—and, by coincidence, I also had the last Oral Question reached this morning,—I should, as I should certainly like to do, associate myself on behalf of back bench Members with the remarks made by the Leader of the House last Thursday. I take this opportunity


of thanking Mr. Speaker, his Deputies—including yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker—the Clerks, officials, staff and police of the House for suffering us for so long through so many sleepless nights this Session. As we ourselves go back now, not on holiday but to deal with the problems of our constituents it would be very remiss of me if I did not take the opportunity of thanking them all for the very excellent service they have given us.

4.50 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman), whose interest in architectural matters is well known, on raising this important matter today. I shall speak as briefly as possible because I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) and for Ipswich (Mr. Money) and the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) hope to contribute to the debate.
The provision of a new parliamentary building is of the greatest importance to us all if we are to carry out our duties efficiently. We do our best now; and I do not think the public, our constituents, can seriously complain about the service we give them from what is, particularly for Private Members, often cramped and unsatisfactory accommodation which would not be tolerated in commerce, industry or the professions. It has, however, for long been recognised that something better is wanted, not only for ourselves but also for our very hard-working staff, if that service is to be maintained in conditions appropriate to both the efficiency and the dignity of this House.
I am, of course, aware that some hon. Members are not entirely enthusiastic about the winning design which has now been endorsed in a modified form by the Services Committee. The issue is debateable and it will no doubt be debated at length in the autumn when we consider the Committee's report and recommendation. The actual timing of the debate must rest with my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council, though I will certainly ask him to consider my hon. Friend's request. We do not, however, have to reach a decision today, and I propose, as my contribution to this preliminary canter, merely to run over some

of the considerations which the House will wish to bear in mind when it comes to a decision, and to mention what we shall be doing to help this to be done against a sufficiently informed background.
What worries most hon. Members who have criticised the winning design is its external appearance. This comes out clearly in the record of evidence presented to the Committee, and in the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke), ably supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) and Cannock (Mr. Cormack) when we last debated the matter, though in a wider context, on 24th July.
I do not think that there will be any disagreement if I say that whatever the House decides to commission for the Bridge Street site must be worthy of its setting, which is one of the most important not only to this country but in the world. Whatever is built there must not be mean or gimmicky, nor, conversely, need it be grandiose, but it must be able to take its place appropriately, though not perhaps without the modesty befitting a newcomer, alongside its magnificent neighbours. Fortunately, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction said in evidence to the Services Committee, it is the rôle of the Royal Fine Art Commission rather than of my Department to form a view on the aesthetics of the matter. Its views are expressed in the memorandum which it submitted to the Committee and in its evidence as recorded in the report.
Hon. Members will be able to form their own views whether the Committee's summary in paragraph 4 of its Report—that the winning design would be a good neighbour to the existing buildings in Parliament Square—is sufficient answer to the critics' doubts, or whether greater weight should be given to the other considerations which some of my hon. Friends proposed unsuccessfully to incorporate in an amendment.
The Services Committee itself has gone some way towards meeting the criticism of the height of the proposed building in relation to the Palace of Westminster and the buildings on the other side of Parliament Street. Its proposal that the height of the proposed building should be reduced by about 1½ metres to bring it level with the top of the balustrade above


the main cornice of the Treasury building should improve matters considerably from this point of view. There will probably also be general agreement with its other proposed modifications if it is eventually decided to accept its report that the winning design be adopted.
The proposed alignment with the Treasury building in Great George Street seems to have merit whatever the shape of the eventual buildings in Bridge Street. I realise that this is not quite enough for our friends across the water at County Hall, who would like us to set our building line even further back in order to incorporate another traffic lane in Bridge Street. Their views as highway authority for the area, must clearly be treated with respect, though I doubt whether they will find much support for another traffic lane in Bridge Street from any quarter of this House.
I expect that if it is decided to go ahead with this building we would welcome the provision of shops—subject, of course, to the committee's concern for retaining as much natural light as possible for the offices. Similarly I think that we would all agree that the vertical lines of the building need emphasis as a contrast to its rather massive, horizontal lines, that experiments should be tried with lighter colours and that more consideration should be given to security.
I emphasise that the decision is of course for the House. Just as my right hon. Friends do not presume to be arbiters of taste, so their general rôle is to give effect to the will of the House by providing the accommodation it requires. We shall, however, do our best to enable the House to reach the most satisfactory solution by providing hon. Members with whatever information and material is available. My right hon. Friend the Lord President has already said that the architects of the winning design, Mr. Robin Spence and Mr. Robin Webster, have agreed to participate in an illustrated lecture on their proposals. We for our part are incorporating the Services Committee's modifications of height and alignment into a model of the area so that hon. Members may see for themselves what this will mean in visual terms.
Hon. Members will no doubt wish to know what would happen by way of delay in providing this much-needed

accommodation if the House were to reject the winning design and call for a new one for this important site. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West made such a suggestion on 24th July and proposed that we should commission further sketch plans for the House to look at alongside the winning design. He rightly said that if the House adopted the latter there would be no delay; if, on the other hand, the House preferred an alternative, the delay would not be very long.
This course has it attractions. However, there are also difficulties, as my hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth made clear. The most important is that the Services Committee has now recommended that the design as modified he adopted and it would not seem right for my right hon. Friend to commission yet more drawings until we, the House, have decided whether or not to accept that recommendation. There is also the point that we have the other six second-stage designs as well as the 239 which did not go beyond the first stage. Some hon. Members may feel that we should consider these before going any further.
It is, of course, true that, so far as we know, a number of the most eminent of our present day British architects did not enter for the competition. But we have no guarantee that their designs would be any more acceptable than those that we have; and to start afresh would naturally take longer than to go ahead with what we have. There is, of course, also the question how we would judge the respective merits of a number of fresh alternative designs. My hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth is expert in these matters. However, most of us are not and I imagine that we should need some formal method of adjudication. The assessors in the last competition have already delivered their verdict.
However, these are issues for the House to consider at a later stage. In the meantime we are doing what we can within the Department to ensure that if the House were to decide that the winning design should be adopted so that the extra accommodation may be ready by 1978, its wishes should not be frustrated by any lack of urgency on our part. With this in view we have issued notices to treat in respect of all the existing buildings on the site which are not yet in


Government ownership. We are also on the point of issuing notices under Section 57(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, informing those concerned of the proposed change in use of the premises. This is to enable all statutory processes to be completed and demolition to begin during the first half of next year.
I take note of the point my hon. Friend raises with regard to possible archaeological finds, and a constant watch will

be kept in this respect by my Department's Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments. We are also conducting useful preliminary negotiations with London Transport about the reprovision of the Underground railway station, but I understand that the line will continue as before.

It being Five o'clock, Mr SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put till Tuesday, 17th October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.